January 2022

Kenya. Zamara launches retirement insurance plan for boda boda riders

Zamara Group, a financial services provider, has entered into a partnership with the United Boda Boda Association of Kenya. The partnership agreement aims to bring financial security to close to 2 million Kenyans within the Boda Boda sector through its Fahari Retirement Plan. The partnership will kick off with rollout of pilot programs on retirement saving, pensions and insurance acceptance within the sector, training and mass rollout to facilitate adoption. Fahari ya Boda Boda is tailored to the specific needs...

Ghana. Lack of Pension plan for informal sector workers puts financial burden on youth and retirees

Workers in the informal sector face a lot of problems as they get older and retire. Many people have hung on to misconceptions and falsehoods about pensions throughout the years. But the failure to set up a pension plan frequently places a financial burden on the children of retirees. Many in the informal sector cringe at the mention of pension or end of service benefits. Seventy-four-year-old Obaapanin Yaa Ampomaah sells yam at Ayigya Market in Kumasi. She has been selling this food stuff...

Estonia. State to provide option of increasing second pension pillar deposits

The Ministry of Finance has drawn up an intention to allow people to voluntarily increase their second pension pillar deposits to 4 percent or 6 percent from the current 2 percent. The draft is currently on a coordination round. Since the creation of the mandatory funded pension system, the rate of payment for the second pillar has always been 2 percent of a working person's gross salary, but the finance ministry is planning amendments to the Funded Pensions Act, which...

December 2021

US. Gig Economy Retirement Planning

Gig workers, like everyone else, deserve a pension. Freelancers, contract workers, self-employed, temp workers, on-call employees, and individuals with side hustles make up a significant component of our economy. Currently, 57 million Americans are estimated to be gig workers. Since March of last year, freelancing and gig marketplaces like Gigspot and Upwork have reported growth in users. Freelancers may make up half of US employment by 2023. Statista reported data from a 2018 poll in January indicating 27% of full-time...

UK. Platforms must help advisers reduce carbon footprints

Platforms must explore ways to support advisers in their digital and sustainable goals, M&G Wealth’s sales director has said. Justin Blower told FTAdviser UK platforms needed to keep up the momentum in their digitisation and automation strategies, as hybrid advice becomes more important in a post-pandemic world and the UK government increasingly prioritises carbon neutrality in the wake of Cop26. “Generally, advice firms have embraced portals and technology that allow them to service clients remotely,” said Blower. “And many more clients...

India’s expanding gig economy must treat workers fairly

The gig economy and its growing fault lines between gig employees and platform companies are in the news again, with 50 women “partners" of Urban Company’s (UC) salon and spa vertical protesting against policy changes that will come into effect from January. These, they claim, will affect their ability to earn and are therefore “unfair labour practices". The company, India’s largest home-services provider, has filed a lawsuit in Gurugram’s district court against the protests. The judgement in this case...

PinBox pushes to bring more global workers into retirement savings tent

Gautam Bhardwaj is aiming to get 100 million workers in the informal sectors of India's economy — from Uber drivers to farmers to domestic servants — to start saving for retirement over the next five years. For the co-founder and director of Singapore-based pension-tech provider pinBox Solutions Pte. Ltd., that amounts to a quick pivot from an initial success in Rwanda — where in close collaboration with the government, pinBox helped 1.5 million informal sector workers, a quarter of that...

E.U. Plan to Boost Gig Economy Workers Is Latest Blow to Apps

European Union plan to improve conditions for the growing number of gig economy workers could mean millions more of them are classified as employees entitled to benefits, the latest setback for digital platforms that rely on independent contractors to deliver food and offer rides. The draft rules outlined Thursday aim to clarify the labor status of people employed by app-based companies like ride-hailing service Uber and food delivery business Deliveroo and would add oversight for the algorithms they use to...

Nigeria. PenCom says 72,000 participants registered for Micro Pension Plan

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has disclosed that 72,000 participants have been registered under the Micro Pension Plan (MPP) as at November 2021. This was disclosed by Head, Micro Pension Department, PenCom, Mr Dowda Ahmed, in an interview on Friday with NAN during the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) Annual Media Parley in Lagos, themes, “Micro Pension – Challenges and Opportunities.” He also pointed out the category of people under the scheme. What PenCom is saying Ahmed stated that the scheme...

Brexit would be better for UK workers, Boris Johnson promised. But will it?

The European Commission’s plans to protect people in precarious jobs in the gig economy could be the most ambitious extension of workers’ rights from Brussels since Britain left the EU. If adopted, the plans would mean that gig economy companies, such as Uber and Deliveroo, would have to treat workers as employees with minimum wages (where they exist), sick pay, holidays and better accident insurance, unless they could prove that drivers and couriers were genuinely self-employed. Workers would also get greater...