Perhaps one of the more interesting candidates for an award was PensPlan Centrum with its proposal for money manager selection based on the decision tree logic.
The organisation was set up in 1997, founded by regional government, to provide administration logistics to local supplementary pension plans. The organisation’s president, Professor Gianfranco Cerea, says the novel scheme serves a number of purposes in the way it supports the local schemes in the Alpine northern region of Bolsano. “We need to encourage younger members of society to join supplementary schemes, but there are a number of obstacles in the way. At the present time only 50% of potential members actually join a scheme. They are mainly male, highly educated and on a good salary. This means we have many obvious targets outside of the funds. They make up the weakest part of society, and we must do something to get them inside the supplementary pension system.”
Cerea says communication is crucial, but that existing members should not be expected to fund such promotions, rather it should be met from public funds.
Unfortunately fiscal incentives do not seem to be working, and so it has fallen to the Centrum to take action. “We have to encourage the younger workers, and we are doing this by guaranteeing contributions when they join, covering absence from work either as a result of illness or unemployment. Costs are a regressive tax when a fund is setting out, and so we offer free administration. This is particularly important in our region where the high number of German speakers increases costs.”
PensPlan Centrum also provides psychological support, guaranteeing their funds 3% growth over a 30-year period.
Cerea accepts that this is cosmetic, but still an innovative move. “We have a novel scheme so far as Europe is concerned, and hope that it will encourage poorer people to join. It seems to have been working as the region, one of Italy’s richest, has attracted 60,000 participants.
“Winning the award has been important for us. We have spent three years looking at how European and US funds work, and these awards have the added advantage of providing an external evaluation.
“I also think it is right that IPE should be looking at things with a European perspective. To find a solution to the pensions crisis we will have to take the best from both European and Anglo-Saxon social policy,” says Cerea.

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