June 2021

Emerging markets face a USD 5.4 trillion-per-year shortfall in savings for sustainable retirements, says Swiss Re Institute

- Emerging markets face a USD 5.4 trillion pension savings shortfall for every year of their workers' retirements, or USD 106 trillion in cumulative terms.¹ - This gap between emerging markets' pension assets and pension income need is about USD 40,000 for every worker – about 8.5 times the average annual worker's income. Read also Namibia. President signs law that consolidate regulations of all financial institutions Latin America has a pension savings gap of USD 514 billion per year, or USD 50 000 per worker on average. Brazil has the region's highest gap due to...

World Bank : The costs and benefits of making pension funds a target for financial repression

Financial repression is not new topic, but the striking amount of new debt taken on by governments to support their economies in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis has made the issue ever more relevant. Financial repression occurs when governments channel funds to themselves that in a deregulated market environment would go elsewhere. It usually aims to provide cheaper loans to companies and governments, reducing their burden of repayments by lowering returns to savers. Policies involved can include capital...

2021 pension adequacy report Current and future income adequacy in old age in the EU. Volume I

By The 2021 Pension Adequacy Report (PAR) is the fourth edition of the report, prepared every 3 years by the Social Protection Committee (SPC) and the European Commission. The report aims to present a comparative analysis of the degree to which pension systems in the EU Member States enable older people to retire with an adequate income today and in the future, reflecting pension reforms, as well as underlying changes and current or future challenges in our societies. Since 2012, the...

A preservation ‘revival’ will supercharge South Africa’s retirement outcomes

South Africa's retirement outcomes will improve radically if all retirement funding contributions are kept invested when fund members change jobs. Other quick wins include increasing the minimum government pension; delaying the government retirement age beyond 60 years; and refocusing the industry from saving a lump sum at retirement to providing a sustainable income in retirement. These observations were made by Dr David Knox, the lead author of the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index (GPI), during a keynote address to...

May 2021

UK. Covid fails to inject interest in pensions

The pandemic has failed to spark interest in pensions according to a survey from Canada Life. It reveals that 67% of UK adults have not logged into their pension online in a year. This figure rises to 78% for those aged over 55 while 56% of adults said they haven’t received a pension statement that they read. The research also shows that 16% of those who have not logged into their pension were not interested in doing this. Fifteen percent admitted they did...

China turns to private insurers to help unlock US$15.3 trillion of savings and avert a crisis in state pension system

This is the 11th in a series of stories about China’s once-a-decade census, which was conducted in 2020. The world’s most populous nation released its national demographic data on May 11, and the figures will have far-reaching social policy and economic implications. Read also China population: state pension fund under pressure from ‘unprecedented challenge’ as nation gets older Some of China’s biggest insurers are relishing the opportunity to unlock US$15.3 trillion of private savings, the size of the world’s second-largest economy,...

Fintech and the Retirement Savings System

By Society of Actuaries This report provides a sampling of new financial technologies (fintech) and their applications related to retirement savings systems affecting participants, plan sponsors and service providers. This Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the contents of the report. We first discuss issues directly relevant to pension participants and the decisions they need to make. We then discuss issues relevant to plan sponsors and service providers. Each section also includes references about the fintech area discussed which can be found...

Chicago Boys’ Free-Market Pension Model Is Unraveling in Chile

Chile’s privately run pension funds are in a battle for survival, reeling under the impact of billions of dollars of withdrawals as politicians and social movements attack a system once viewed as a model for the world. Chileans have taken out more than $30 billion from their retirement savings in the past year and congress has authorized a third wave of withdrawals that could drive the figure to more than $50 billion. That would leave the pension funds with about...

US birth rate falls 4% to its lowest point ever

The American birth rate fell for the sixth consecutive year in 2020, with the lowest number of babies born since 1979, according to a new report. Some 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2020 - marking a 4% decline from the year before, found the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. The slump was seen across all recorded ethnicities and origins, according to the findings. The national picture mirrors a decline in...

BBC Africa Eye uncovers grand corruption in Nigeria’s pension pot

A new investigation by BBC Africa Eye into pensions in Nigeria has uncovered an unfair and corrupt system which leaves some elderly people sick and penniless, with government workers soliciting extra payments before paying out pensions, people arbitrarily being declared ‘dead’ and having to prove they are alive before their pension is reinstated, and politicians being offered outrageous retirement packages. The five month investigation began when Africa eye was approached by Obaji Akpet – a reporter / producer from Cross...