All Country Reports articles
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Country ReportFrench workplace pensions grow as reform controversy recedes
Macron’s controversial pension reforms look likely to survive, at least for now, and despite the political turmoil of the recent elections
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Country ReportItaly Country Report 2024: How local pensions could support the economy
The Italian pension industry and policymakers are discussing ways to channel more pension investment towards the country’s business sector
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Country ReportCEE country report 2024: Poland’s auto-enrolment system - five years on
Slow but steady progress in auto enrolment is driving growth in workplace pension assets and membership
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Country ReportPensions in France - IPE Country Report
Fierce opposition from trade unions and a large part of the political spectrum did not manage to stop Emmanuel Macron’s plan to reform the French pension system. The new framework kicks in this month, and the long-term sustainability of public pensions is secure. However, French workers will have to work longer into their lives, and their standard of living will decline.
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Country ReportCountry report – Pensions in Nordic Region (June 2023)
Reputational issues are front of mind for the board of Alecta, Sweden’s largest pension fund, as it continues to digest the fallout from its ill-starred investments in Silicon Valley Bank and two other US financial institutions that collapsed in March this year.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in UK (May 2023)
UK pensions are at a crucial juncture. The UK Parliament’s inquiry into the LDI crisis of September 2022 shed some light on its causes, but the debate on the role of LDI is alive and well. Meanwhile, regulators including The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority have advised pension schemes on how to make LDI strategies more resilient to shocks.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in the Netherlands (April 2023)
The Netherlands is in the final legislative stages of what will probably be the largest and most complex workplace pension system change ever in the world. Yet as it edges towards the parliamentary finishing line, recent political events could yet knock the process off course.
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Country ReportGermany: First pillar pension reforms in need of political and financial capital
Berlin’s new ‘Generationenkapital’ concept is intended to revamp the ailing first pillar but political consensus is lacking and more capital will be necessary to endow the planned state fund
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Germany (March 2023)
Angela Merkel’s governments largely dodged the political hot potato of first-pillar pension reform, which means the current overhaul to the state system is overdue. But it barely gets to grips with the issues. For one, it does not deal with entitlements or increase the retirement age; second it introduces a funded component that will probably only take effect in the 2030s, when the post-war demographic peak is passing.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Ireland (February 2023)
Ireland is preparing an Auto Enrolment Bill, which will kick-start the process of defined contribution pension reform in earnest, some 15 years after the concept was first mooted. The plan is for a Central Processing Authority to administer the system and for up to four providers to tender for a chance to manage member contributions.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Central & Eastern Europe (January 2023)
Poland’s PPK auto-enrolment system marks its fourth anniversary this month. It can hardly be described as a complete success given the participation rate is stuck at just over a third of the working population. Some initial projections foresaw a 70% takeup level. But with assets approaching €2.5bn and rapidly growing, there is a sense that this is a relatively good outcome for a country with no tradition of independent retirement saving and where the previous second pillar system was radically overhauled just a few years ago, leaving ordinary citizens confused and mistrustful.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in the Nordic Region (December 2022)
Nordic pension funds are getting to grips with biodiversity and natural capital in their investment portfolios, seeking to measure both the impact of companies they invest in and ways they can limit adverse effects on nature. Like other investors globally, many are just at the early stages of thinking about this - how they measure biodiversity, which metrics and approaches are gaining acceptance, and how best to report to stakeholders.
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Country ReportFrance: First-pillar pension reform faces impasse
The French state faces growing expenditure on pension but attempts to reform the system have stalled
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in France (October) 2022
The French pension system is in good health with a first-pillar pay-as-you-go system in surplus. But long-term forecasts are cause for concern, showing that the French state will have to raise expenditure on pensions from the current 13% to nearly 15% of GDP to maintain the system.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in the UK (May 2022)
The 80-plus local government pension funds in England and Wales have been on course to consolidate into eight asset pools for the last six years, with a target of €1-2bn in cost savings by 2033.
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Country ReportGermany: Leading viewpoints on pensions policy
Senior pension figures and politicians spell out their priorities for German pensions
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Germany & Austria (April 2022)
It took just over 100 days in office before Germany’s new coalition government announced a €500bn budget to first pillar pension financing, setting in motion an agreed reform process that would create a partially funded state pension system.
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Country ReportFunding levels down, but outlook good
An update on the accounting deficits in Irish DB pension schemes
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Country ReportRevised code of practice beds in
Ireland’s Pensions Authority published its revised code of practice for occupational pension scheme trustees last November, to a lukewarm reception. After a lukewarm response, trustees are getting to grips with what is required of them
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Country ReportAuto-enrolment: a never-ending story?
COVID, Brexit and elections all contributed to the delay in the introduction of the workplace schemes
