October 2024
03Oct

UK. FCA: ‘We’ve raised the bar, we never expected all funds to get SDR label’

There is a “healthy pipeline” of funds applying for SDR investment labels, in line with where the regulator expected the market to be at this stage, the Financial Conduct Authority has said. Alicia Kedzierski, head of sustainable finance at the FCA, told delegates at the UKSIF Good Money Week conference 10 labels had been awarded as of yesterday (October 2) and many more were in the pipeline. Though she could not say how many labels the regulator expects to authorise before...

October 3, 2024
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01Oct

UK. Industry must work to improve communication on sustainable pensions

There is an “enormous amount of work” to do to improve communication with savers about sustainable pensions, Harmonics founder and CEO, John Dithfield, has argued. Speaking at a Good Money Week event yesterday (September 30), Dithfield discussed the complexities of sustainable pensions and how difficult it can be for savers to fully understand them. “What should savers look for in a pension? I think it is very difficult really,” he said. “The real problem for people is the complexity of understanding what’s...

October 1, 2024
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September 2024
24Sep

UK. Pension schemes should not ignore SDR

With the rollout of the FCA’s Sustainability Disclosure Regulations (SDR) now well underway, pension schemes should consider how their ESG and sustainability objectives could be impacted by the regime in the long-term, according to AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM). One of the key components of SDR is fund labelling, with qualifying asset managers having been able to use the four new sustainability labels for asset managers – Focus, Improvers, Impact and Mixed Goals – from 31 July 2024. Being a voluntary...

September 24, 2024
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23Sep

The U.S. Retirement System Will Fail Most Future Retirees

Careful research by Ph.D economists concludes America faces a huge retirement shortfall. We are about eight to nine years away from Social Security's inability to pay full benefits; all boomers are past age 60, and the typical Gen Y and Millennial is predicted to do a little worse or much worse than the cohorts of their big brothers, sisters, and parents. The erosion in retirement security is worse for the bottom 60% or so of the earnings distribution. Yes,...

September 23, 2024
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19Sep

UK. NHS retirees with six-figure pensions double in a year

The number of retired NHS workers receiving pensions paying £100,000 has more than doubled in a year. Nearly 2,000 former consultants and senior staff now have pensions paying six-figures – up from 890 last year and 698 in 2022. Britain’s public sector pension debt has swollen to nearly £5 trillion, which is the equivalent of £173,000 per household. The NHS retirement plan, which is the nation’s largest public sector pension scheme, paid £12bn to its retirees in the 2023-2024 tax year, official documents show. Most...

September 19, 2024
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13Sep

The future of retirement security: An international comparison through the lens of adequacy, sustainability, equity and plan design

By Surya Kolluri, Catherine Reilly & David Richardson The average retiree can now expect to spend about two decades in retirement, roughly double the time from 50 years ago. Along with extended lifespans, the number of workers per retiree is declining around the world and ever fewer workers have access to defined benefit (DB) plans that promise a guaranteed income in retirement. Instead, most workers save for retirement through defined contribution (DC) plans, which do not automatically convert savings into...

September 13, 2024
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04Sep

South Korea. Gov’t seeks to raise pension premium rate to 13% of income

The government is seeking to gradually increase the pension premium rate from the current 9 percent of income to 13 percent and the pension's income replacement rate from 40 percent to 42 percent through a major reform designed to restore public trust in the fund’s sustainability, particularly among young people. The reform plan, announced on Wednesday by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, includes measures to enhance fairness among different age groups by increasing pension premiums more gradually for younger...

September 4, 2024
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August 2024
19Aug

How to solve the crisis of the pension system in the EU?

The demographic time bomb in Europe has been ticking for decades. The countries of the European Union are getting older, and people are living longer. More than a fifth of the population of the European Union is now aged 65 or over. That number is expected to grow to a third by 2050. Last year, the World Health Organization warned that in 2024, the number of people over the age of 65 will exceed the number of people under the...

August 19, 2024
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July 2024
31Jul

The Future of Growth Report 2024

By World Economic Forum The Future of Growth Report 2024 introduces a multidimensional framework to assess the quality of economic growth across 107 countries globally. It characterizes nations’ economic growth across four dimensions: Innovativeness; Inclusiveness; Sustainability; and Resilience. The data and analysis presented may be used by a wide range of stakeholders to identify areas to improve, trade-offs to resolve or synergies to exploit. While every country has a unique growth pathway shaped by a wide range of circumstantial...

July 31, 2024
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12Jul

Sustainable Investing in Pensions: Top Tips for Sponsors of Pension Schemes

 By Accounting for Sustainability This top tips guidance is written for organizations that sponsor a pension scheme on the why and how to engage with your pension trustees on sustainable investing. Just as more and more companies are embedding social and environmental risk and opportunity into strategy and decision making, it is vital that their pension schemes follow suit. The impact that climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks can have on value and returns is driving changes across...

July 12, 2024
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