The Dutch pensions industry has expressed concerns it will be forced to revise the uniform pensions statement (UPO) yet again with the introduction of the revised Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive (IORP II).
The Dutch Pensions Federation and the Association of Insurers (VvV) warned that it may have to expand the statement to include the expected pensions result under three different scenarios, the level of pensions contributions and costs.
The pensions industry revamped the UPO only recently and actually removed scenarios, as it believed this element increased the statement’s complexity.
Neither pension fund costs nor the contributions paid by workers and companies have ever featured on the Dutch UPO, but they do appear in pension funds’ annual reports and on their websites.
Gerard Riemen, the Pension Federation’s director, has previously predicted that the impact of the European legislation would be limited, “as the Netherlands was already a frontrunner on the uniform statement”.
The pensions industry adjusted the uniform statement to the 1-2-3 model, which provides basic information about pension arrangements in a top layer, followed by additional information in a second layer and – in a final layer – relevant documents.
A spokesman for the Federation said aligning European rules on the UPO to match the Dutch approach would be “desirable”.
The Federation and the VvV are awaiting approval by the Social Affairs Ministry before the new models are introduced in 2017.
At the moment, experts at the industry groups are assessing the potential exact impact of IORP II on the UPO.
The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, which is to oversee the implementation of IORP II, has announced that it will launch proposals to improve comparability of information for pension fund participants in 2018.
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