NETHERLANDS – The Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, is consulting on pension reporting ahead of the implementation of the new FTK (Financial Assessment Framework) and Pension Law.

The proposals have gone to partners such as the company pension association OPF and industry-wide group the VB ahead of the new rules coming in on January 1 2007.

The DNB says the new law and the FTK will result in a totally new set of reporting issues for Dutch pension funds. They will also have to report to market regulator the Autoriteit Financiële Markten and the Ministry of Social Affairs. And the statistics office CBS and economic analysis office CPB will also have to be kept informed.

To bring down the total workload for pension funds, the new reporting set is functional for most supervising organisations.

The implementation of the pension law and FTK still depend on current proposals being finalised, although in the meantime the DNB says industry groups have agreed on the steps before final approval.

The DNB urges pension organisations to do so to take as much advantage as possible between now and 2007.

The DNB has also revealed that the coverage ratio of the 75 largest pension funds has increased (on a fair value basis) from 126% to 128% as at the end of 2005.

This puts them almost on pair with the DNB's required 130% coverage ratio.

The increase was largely due to yields made on equity, while alternative investments (commodities) have shown largely negative results.

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