December 2024

Pensioners of Radio Pakistan in Gilgit-Baltistan demand overdue benefits

Last week, a determined group of retired employees from Radio Pakistan marched through the streets of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (PoGB), voicing their frustrations over delayed retirement benefits and pensions that remain unpaid despite years of service. The demonstrators, a coalition of former staff who dedicated decades of their lives to the national broadcaster, gathered to demand immediate action from the government, shedding light on the financial hardships they currently face. Organised by a committed faction of people who have retired, the lively...

Unpaid pension funds rise to Sh47.16 billion, leaving Kenyan retirees at risk

Kenyan workers are at risk of financial struggles when they retire, as unpaid pension contributions by public universities and county governments increased by 12.3 per cent to reach Sh47.16 billion in the year ending June 2024. According to the latest report by the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA), the amount of money deducted from workers' salaries for their retirement savings but not sent to pension schemes grew from Sh42 billion. This puts many pensioners at risk of having insufficient funds for their...

September 2024

US. Annuities gain traction with middle-market consumers

Middle-income Americans will have a more difficult time managing their longevity risk in retirement now that fewer of them have defined benefit plans. Making matters more complicated is that many of these middle-market investors may have saved thousands of dollars throughout their careers in their employer-sponsored defined contribution plans but may not know how they can be certain their money lasts throughout the retirement. LIMRA’s Retirement Investor Study, published earlier this year, examined middle-income investors’ views of their retirement risks...

August 2024

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao, Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first home....

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao & Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first...

July 2024

Scammers are targetting older americans and their retirement savings

For nearly three months, Barry Heitin, a 76-year-old retired lawyer, thought he was part of a government investigation that felt like something out of the movies. He was actually assisting criminals in stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars — of his own money. Last fall, he spent just about every weekday doing the legwork and making withdrawals from his bank accounts as part of an intricate scam: He believed he was helping the feds safeguard his money and catch thieves...

UK. Lifetime annuity rates rise to over 7% in June

Lifetime annuity rates have continued to improve in 2024, rising to 7.08 per cent in June for a healthy 65 year old, according to the Standard Life Annuity Rate Tracker. This is around a 4 per cent increase from the average rate of 6.81 per cent in January and a 2.64 per cent improvement from 6.9 per cent in March. This would add an extra £3,659 to the average total lifetime income for a 65 year old man and £4,059 to...

The decumulation challenge

As people continue to live and work longer, the challenge of longevity – running out of money too soon into retirement - is hanging over many Canadians’ retirement plans. According to research from CCP Investments, only 45% of Canadians actually have some sort of plan in place for their retirement, with 53% admitting they don’t know how much money they’ll need to retire. Part of this anxiety stems from a change in the last decades in the retirement plan landscape, as...

Exiled pro-democracy Hong Kong activists blocked from accessing pensions

Two exiled pro-democracy Hong Kong activists have been blocked from accessing their pensions, depriving them of tens of thousands of US dollars of their savings and raising questions about the complicity of western financial institutions in the persecution of Chinese government critics. Assets, including pension savings, belonging to Ted Hui, a former pro-democracy legislator who is now based in Australia, were frozen shortly after he fled from Hong Kong in December 2020. The assets are held by HSBC, a British bank. HSBC briefly unfroze Hui’s...

June 2024

3M to transfer pension-payment obligations for 23,000 U.S. retirees

3M to book a charge of nearly $1 billion as it transfers some of its pension obligations to Met Tower Life 3M Co. said Thursday it will transfer about $2.5 billion of its pension-payment obligations to Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Co. The consumer- and industrial-products company (MMM) said the transfer, which will affect the pension payments of about 23,000 U.S. retirees, won't change the amount of the monthly benefit payments. The only change is who is making the payments. 3M, which makes...