September 2020

25Sep

Kenya. Workers can now access pensions to buy house

Workers can now access up to Sh7 million or a maximum of 40 percent of their retirement savings to buy their first residential house after Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani signed the amended regulations. Pension schemes have until September 14, 2021 to amend their rules to allow their members early to access their savings for house purchase. The law is meant to boost home ownership in a market where most people employed in the formal sector are unable to raise...

September 25, 2020
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25Sep

UK. Scam warning signs found in half of post-Lockdown pension transfers

According to XPS, the pensions consultancy firm, in July and August of this year 51% of pension transfers, equating to twenty five million pounds in pension savings, were flagged as at risk of a pension scam. The number of transfers showing at least one red flag has dramatically increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2016, only 13% of pensions’ transfers triggered a red flag. This figure rose to 33% at the end of June 2020 and then jumped considerably...

September 25, 2020
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25Sep

Greece. Funded pension plan for more workers

The Labor and Social Security Ministry is examining the idea of granting younger workers – with few years of labor in the current social security system – the option of choosing to join the new funded auxiliary pension system, the very system that new entrants in the labor market must now enter by law. The same option, per the proposals examined at the General Secretariat for Social Security, will also be offered to any groups of workers who have...

September 25, 2020
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24Sep

Financial education: Current practices and future challenges

By Kristof De Witte, Oliver Holz, Kenneth De Beckker In a world where individuals become increasingly responsible for their financial well-being, and where the complexity of financial markets and products is growing, financial education becomes crucial. Although it is well accepted to introduce financial education in compulsory education, there is no consensus on the optimal way to implement financial education. This book explores the current state and the future challenges of financial education in five European countries: Belgium,...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

Impact of Fintech Development on Savings, Borrowing and Remittances: A Comparative Study of Emerging Economies

By Angela Lyons, Josephine Kass-Hanna, Ana Polato e Fava Fintech is rapidly changing the landscape for financial services in terms of accessibility and affordability, especially in this post-COVID era. Digital finance now has the potential to be a game changer for the nearly two billion financially excluded persons in the developing and emerging world. Non-bank providers such as mobile money services have expanded and are leapfrogging ahead of conventional banking services. This study investigates the linkages between fintech development...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

The Role of IRAs in US Households’ Saving for Retirement, 2019

By Sarah Holden, Daniel Schrass This paper presents survey results on the incidence of IRA ownership in the United States and the activity of IRA-owning households. In mid-2019, 36 percent of US households owned individual retirement accounts (IRAs). More than eight in 10 IRA-owning households also had employer-sponsored retirement plan accumulations or had defined benefit plan coverage. All told, more than six in 10 US households had retirement plans through work or IRAs; three-quarters of near-retiree households did. In...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

US. Pension Buyouts a Relative Bargain, Says Mercer

Now may be a good time for companies looking to de-risk their defined benefit (DB) pension plans to consider an annuity buyout, according to new data from consulting firm Mercer, which shows a hypothetical retiree buy-out transaction costs an estimated 97.7% of a plan’s accounting obligations. Mercer said the new data is a result of recent tweaking the company made to its US Pension Buyout Index, which tracks the relationship between the accounting liability for a defined benefit plan...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

Ghana: Press highlights plight of pensioners, removal of 7,000 ‘ghost’ names from govt’s payroll

The call on the government to take liability for the shortage in the payment of lump sums to pensioners and the removal of 7,000 ‘ghost’ names from the government’s payroll are some of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday. The Graphic reports that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to take liability for the shortage in the payment of lump sums to pensioners who started retiring from this year under the new...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

UK. Aon warns longevity risk has not gone away with COVID-19 deaths

Insurance and reinsurance broker and risk advisory Aon has warned today that re/insurers and pension funds need to avoid over-reacting to how inclusion of COVID-19 deaths changes recognised mortality models, saying that “longevity risk has not gone away.” Once excess deaths are added into the mortality models for the United Kingdom it may produce an unrealistic fall in life expectancy, Aon warns. Insurance and reinsurance companies, as well as pension schemes and funds, factor life expectancy into their calculations...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

It’s too early to panic over plans for South African pensions: asset managers

The topic of South African pensions was raised again this week after the Democratic Alliance (DA) called for comment on its proposed Private Member’s Bill to amend the Pension Funds Act. The party wants to amend the Act to enable pension fund members to access a percentage of their pension fund before retirement as a guarantee for a loan. This will help alleviate financial pressure during an emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic or any other emergency similar to...

September 24, 2020
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