NETHERLANDS - Dutch Pension funds will be allowed to inform their members about the build-up and indexation of their pensions by email, social affairs minister Aart Jan de Geus has said.

Pension providers may communicate electronically, after written consent, de Geus made clear in proposed changes to the new Pensions Bill, which is currently under discussion within parliament.

If the email address of the recipient appears to be wrong, the pensions provider will still submit the information on paper.

Part of the Pensions Bill is a legal right of pension schemes’ members to personal information about their pension, which is mainly about the build-up of claims and adjustments to inflation.

The minister has also suggested a limit on the compulsory information to participants, on how the pension contract is being carried out. Schemes will no longer have to provide information on trustees, and may limit information about the financial situation of the scheme until a participants leaves.

The information will be relevant then, in connection with value transfer.

According to de Geus, employees have to get informed on the existence of a voluntary pension scheme, and about the performance of a pension provider, e.g. the existence of a recovery plan.

The mandatory rules of the Civic Code for annual reporting and accounting should apply to smaller pension funds as well, the minister indicated. “Banks, insurers and investment institutions shouldn’t be excluded either.”

Furthermore, de Geus announced rules on managing the financial position of pension funds in the long run. A continuity test must make pension funds’ boards think of the possible long-term developments, and how to anticipate, he explained.

The test’s criteria will be set by the minister.

The minister also said that the Financial Services’ Act, or Wfd, does apply to insurers and intermediaries, but not to pension funds.

The Dutch cabinet is still aiming to introduce the Pensions Act as of January 1 2007.