Pensioenfonds Detailhandel, the pension fund for the Dutch retail sector, encountered some serious implementation problems last year with its new system for pension administration. The fund as well as its provider Capgemini were hard to reach for members and employers alike.
This led to an increase in complaints from members, Detailhandel said in its annual report for 2021.
A spokesperson for the pension fund confirmed the implementation of the new pension administration system “was not flawless”.
Problems occurred with “several functions related to members”, according to the fund. Capgemini only managed to solve the problems by the end of last year after it had added staff to “improve the functionalities and accessibility”.
Employers also encountered issues with the new admin system. Among other things, they were not able to correctly administer pension contributions paid.
Overburdened call centre
According to a spokesperson for Pensioenfonds Detailhandel, COVID lockdowns are to blame for part of the problems.
“Because of lockdowns and other measures, staff wasn’t able to come to the office. As a result, it became harder for people to reach our call centre.”
According to the fund’s annual report, the call centre was “overburdened” with “long waiting times”.
The pension fund’s supervisory board said it was “regrettable” that many employers and members “suffered a lot” from the fund being so hard to reach.
According to the supervisory board, the most urgent problems have now been solved while the system will be “further optimised and developed”. A spokesperson for the fund said the foreseen optimisations include improving the pension planner and, more long term, to develop an application.
Costs
As the implementation problems with the new admin system increased the workload, admin costs only decreased marginally from €96 to €88 per member.
This is still way above the €65 per member from before the switch from TKP to Capgemini. Nevertheless, the fund maintains its admin cost target of €60 per member. In the long term, it has vowed to reduce costs to just €15 per member.
“This goal is attainable, but for it to be realised we need to reach bigger economies of scale with Capgemini,” said the fund’s president André Snellen earlier this year at a congress of IPE’s sister publication Pensioen Pro.
Since Capgemini announced its deal with Pensioenfonds Detailhandel in 2019, it has failed to win any additional clients.
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