The financial assessment framework (FTK) for second-pillar pensions in the Netherlands could be successfully “exported” to Germany with a few “adaptations”, according to KAS Bank.

Frank Vogel, managing director of KAS Bank Germany, told IPE the banking group’s Germany subsidiary was now considering to “bring Dutch expertise” to the country.

One of the models he wants to apply is the FTK’s cost-transparency regulation, which includes “a simple catalogue on how to collect data on costs”.

“We are now in talks with German pension funds and associations trying to gauge which data can be reported, which makes sense and what is possible for which form of pension fund,” he said.

Vogel acknowledged that the bank, after holding talks with the industry, could conclude that this would make sense only for certain Durchführungswege – including Pensionskassen and Pensionsfonds – but this, he said, “remains to be seen”.

He stressed that KAS Bank would take “small steps” on the question of transparency in Germany, as the industry was “not nearly as experienced” in collecting these data sets as its Dutch counterpart.

Vogel said that, eventually, more in-depth data such as, for example, target fund costs in fund-of-hedge-fund structures, could be used in a portfolio optimisation analysis.

“The pension industry knows it has to increase cost transparency,” he said.

“The question is how.”

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