NETHERLANDS – Rein van Dam, a former director of pensions supervision at De Nederlandsche Bank, has joined Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

He will be working in an 'independent’ role at the consulting firm, looking at the governance of pension funds.

Earlier this month IPE reported that former Aegon pensions co-ordinator Jacqueline Lommen had joined the DNB as senior advisor in the department of supervisory policy reporting to Diny Tiellemans.

According to van Dam, Mercer is the first firm in the world to put into place a new framework in which certifying actuaries are not involved in other financial issues.

This has been an issue in the Netherlands recently, with the Actuarial Association (Actuarieel Genootschap, AG) putting into place more strict rules.

At present, most certifying actuaries are also involved in advisor functions of pension funds. Mercer has now put into place an independent unit for certification of pension funds.

“The increased strict rules and regulations which should support the independent position of actuaries have been put into place by the AG to further professionalize the sector,” van Dam said.

“The uniform declaration of the certifying actuary is one step forward. I am proud and happy that Mercer is implementing these changes faster than has been requested by the Actuarial Foundation.”

The Actuarial Foundation will implement its own steps from January 2006.

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