June 2020

30Jun

WeBank, Huawei and KPMG Share Insights on Fighting COVID – 19 with FinTech

As part of their efforts to promote fintech solutions in the post-pandemic era, the Financial Services Blockchain Consortium Shenzhen (FISCO), Singapore FinTech Association, FinTech Association of Hong Kong and Shenzhen FinTech Association organized the "Financial Digitalization & Fintech Evolution in the Wake of COVID-19" webinar on June 23. It was the first joint event conducted by FinTech associations in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Singapore. Senior members from WeBank, Huawei and KPMG shared their insights on the trend of financial...

June 30, 2020
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29Jun

Raiding the pot: how the pandemic has deepened the pensions crisis

The arrival of coronavirus in Australia in March left Marie Piggo struggling to put food on the table. The 32-year-old hairdresser from Sydney quickly saw two-thirds of her income disappear as customers stayed at home. Worse still, her husband lost his job. So when the Australian government announced in March it would allow young people like herself to raid their retirement pots to ease financial pressures caused by the coronavirus lockdown, she jumped at the chance. “We didn’t take...

June 29, 2020
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29Jun

US. Coronavirus puts company match under pressure

For the employers that suspended or reduced their matches in defined contribution plans, the coronavirus — which caused the economic havoc leading to cost-cutting — also looms over their efforts to reinstate these benefits. "If companies can bring back the match, they will," said Gregg Levinson, the Philadelphia-based senior director of retirement at Willis Towers Watson PLC. However, a new survey by his firm, conducted during the first half of June, shows that bringing back the match could take...

June 29, 2020
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29Jun

Changes To Social Security Insurance In China

China has updated their social security insurance policies with some noteworthy changes. Jurisdiction China What's new? 1. Faster social security card application process The State Council and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will facilitate a faster application process for social security cards through the nationwide integrated online government service platform. Read also WeBank, Huawei and KPMG Share Insights on Fighting COVID – 19 with FinTech 2. Merging of Maternity Insurance with Basic Medical Insurance The State Council...

June 29, 2020
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29Jun

Increasing compulsory superannuation would crush consumer spending

The Grattan Institute has attacked the legislated lift in the superannuation guarantee (SG) to 12%, claiming it would “leave an enormous hole in economic activity”: Legislated plans to increase the rate of compulsory superannuation contributions incrementally to 12 per cent of wages between 2021 and July 2025 would also exacerbate the economic problems caused by COVID-19, and should be abandoned. At least 80 per cent of the cost of higher compulsory super contributions comes at the cost of lower...

June 29, 2020
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26Jun

Emerging economies and COVID-19 Closing in a world of informal and small companies

By Laura Alfaro, Oscar Becerra, Marcela Eslava Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, smallfirm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual data, quantifies potential job and income losses during the crisis and recovery for economies with different economic organization structures. Our analysis incorporates differential exposure of jobs across categories...

June 26, 2020
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26Jun

US. DOL Proposal Will Chill ESG Corporate Pension Investing, Advocates Say

Advocates of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing have decried the US Department of Labor (DOL)’s newest proposal as poison for sustainable investments in pension plans. Read also 2 Danish pension funds chip into latest European green bond On Tuesday, the DOL proposed a rule that said company defined benefit (DB) retirement plans have a fiduciary duty to beneficiaries, not to social causes advanced through ESG investing that could reduce returns or increase risk. Read also The Mixed...

June 26, 2020
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25Jun

Saving Through a Crisis: How LMI Retirement Plan Participants Are Weathering COVID-19

By Warren Cormier, DCIIA, Nick Maynard & Sylvia Brown In the months since the outbreak of COVID-19, the pandemic has continued to expose and exacerbate cracks in people’s financial lives. In our latest research, Commonwealth partnered with the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association’s (DCIIA) Retirement Research Center on a series of surveys to better understand how low- to moderate-income (“LMI”) plan participants are handling their retirement savings during the pandemic and the impact to their financial security. ...

June 25, 2020
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25Jun

U.K., China entities collaborating on draft China DC plan

The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the People's Bank of China are collaborating on a proposal for an auto-enrollment system and a plan design for occupational defined contribution plans in China. Read also UK. Key workers being targeted by pension transfer scammers – APJ The partners' efforts are aimed at improving the share of private-sector workers in China that are covered by occupational plans, which supplement the state retirement system. Currently, about 7% of workers are covered by workplace...

June 25, 2020
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24Jun

Pension funds expect more focused passive approach

The current COVID-19 downturn and maturation of traditional indexed investments is pushing pension fund investors to consider more focused passive investments. This "theme investing," as it is referred to in a recent study from DWS and CREATE-Research, should gain traction as investors look to invest passively, albeit more selectively. Growth in broad market passive investments and exchange-traded funds are expected to level off or even decline over the next three years, according to survey data, while ESG and thematic...

June 24, 2020
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