November 2019

14Nov

Australia. A 24-Year-Old Is Suing Pension Fund for Not Being Green Enough

Mark McVeigh, a 24-year-old environmental scientist from Australia, won’t be able to access his retirement savings until 2055. But, concerned about what the world may look like then, he’s taking action now, suing his A$57 billion ($39 billion) pension fund for not adequately disclosing or assessing the impact of climate change on its investments. The Federal Court battle is shaping up to be a unique test case. Are pension funds in breach of their fiduciary duties by failing to...

November 14, 2019
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14Nov

US. Federal pension fund to include China investments, bucking political pressure

A pension fund for federal workers on Wednesday said it will begin tracking a benchmark that includes China-listed companies, despite strong opposition from a bipartisan group of Senators. The decision by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), an independent government agency that oversees the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) retirement fund, comes amid heightened trade tensions with China and efforts to limit the flow of U.S. capital to Chinese companies due to security concerns. It also bucks months of...

November 14, 2019
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14Nov

UK. How the new govt should reform pensions

Auto-enrolment provider the People’s Pension has published five demands on the next government to improve pension saving in the UK. In particular the provider wants the next government to help people on low incomes, reduce the gender pensions gap and to make pensions more transparent. Auto-enrolment has widely been considered a success with 10m more people now saving for retirement than did before the policy was rolled out in late 2012. But in its new manifesto, published today...

November 14, 2019
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14Nov

How Fintech’s Third Wave Will Change How You Bank

The origins of today’s boom in consumer-focused “fintech,” or financial technology, trace back to the global economic meltdown in 2008. Since that disaster struck, the industry has evolved through three discrete phases, says Jason Brown, CEO and cofounder of Tally, a fintech startup, on Balancing The Ledger, Fortune’s show covering the intersection of finance and tech. The first wave met demands resulting from the aftermath of the financial crisis: A need for credit fueled alternative lenders. Online and peer-to-peer...

November 14, 2019
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14Nov

UK. Pensioners lose decades of savings in 24 hours

As part of a campaign called ScamSmart, the UK Financial Conduct Authority and The Pensions Regulator have revealed £82,000 (AU$154,202) is the average amount victims of pension scams lost in 2018. It would take an ordinary working saver 22 years to amass that amount, according to the FCA. Despite the significant cost of scams, 24% of people surveyed admitted to deciding on a pension offer within less than 24 hours. One of the main warning signs of a scam...

November 14, 2019
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13Nov

Zimbabwe. NSSA increases pension payouts

The National Social Security Authority (NSSA) has more than doubled its minimum pensions from $80 to $200 a month, while workers' compensation scheme minimum pensions have been tripled from $80 to $240. Read also The Monetary Benefit of Delaying Retirement The increases have been backdated to October 1 with the payments due from today. NSSA funeral grants on all schemes have been pushed up from $300 to $2 000. In a statement yesterday, NSSA board chairman Dr Cuthbert Chidoori said...

November 13, 2019
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13Nov

British expats face losing £50k with pension freeze

The 666,000 retired expats who live in Europe and a handful of countries further afield, such as the US, Jamaica and the Philippines see their payments regularly uprated. But 528,000 have their pensions frozen, the vast majority of them living in Commonwealth countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The state pension only increases annually if a person lives in the European Economic Area (EEA), Gibraltar, Switzerland, and countries that have a social security agreement with the...

November 13, 2019
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13Nov

Latin Americans Are Clamoring for Equality — and Democracy

Economic crisis and stagnation have sparked a wave of protest and a demand for more transparency and an efficient welfare state across the region. A sign carried by one of the more than a million Chileans demonstrating on Oct. 25 read: “Neoliberalism was born in Chile; it is dying in Chile.” You’d think the obituary rings true, if you judge not just by protests not just in Chile and Ecuador a few weeks back, but also by election results...

November 13, 2019
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13Nov

The Tech Behind DC Plan Administration Solutions

As a plan sponsor, you know what entity provides administration services and recordkeeping for your defined contribution (DC) retirement plan—whether it’s a recordkeeping provider or third-party administrator (TPA). But do you know what is behind all of the processing your recordkeeping provider or TPA does? There are a number of technology providers in the retirement plan market that offer certain processes for recordkeepers with their own proprietary or legacy systems, as well as end-to-end recordkeeping for TPAs. According to...

November 13, 2019
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13Nov

UK. Ex-charity head admits defrauding disabled workers’ pension scheme

The former head of a charity faces a substantial prison sentence after admitting to defrauding a pension scheme for workers with disabilities and using the money to buy houses in England and France. Patrick McLarry, 71, took more than £250,000 from the pension scheme of Yateley Industries for the Disabled and used it to buy homes for himself and his wife and pay off a debt over a pub lease. The Pensions Regulator (TPR), which brought the prosecution, said...

November 13, 2019
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