European News in Brief
September 2009
Aviva has opened its Pension Tracker up to more than one million customers and 8,000 group pension schemes, available online. In October, Aviva will also launch a national TV advertising campaign to promote pensions and pensions planning. The Aviva Pension Tracker is available here.
Canada Life has added the range of Tactica Portfolios, managed by Goldman Sachs International, to its Canlife external fund links. The move, which Canada Life hopes will ensure it provides customers with the best possible choice of investment options, will add the S&W Tactica Growth Portfolio, S&W Tactica Balanced Portfolio and S&W Tactica Cautious Portfolio to Canada Life’s onshore products.
Specialist Lloyd’s insurer Jubilee Managing
Agency Limited (Jubilee) has launched a new brand across its
operations as a reflection of the company’s strategic plans to expand
and grow its business lines in the future. The company will unify its
Lloyd’s underwriting and administration operating companies, including
Cassidy David, under a single brand – Jubilee. This, the company
hopes, will promote a clear connection between the different parts of
the group, presenting brokers with a deeper range of products and services
in a more direct and simple way.
The Vienna Stock Exchange has announced that, along with
the stock exchanges of Budapest, Ljubljana and Prague, it now belongs
to the family brand “CEE Stock Exchange Group”.
The move makes the CEE Stock Exchange Group the biggest player among all
stock exchanges of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), although the stock
exchanges will continue to act independently under local management.
Following the recent deadline for comments on the
Solvency II framework passing last week, Deloitte
has commented on the second wave of Committee of European Insurance and
Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) consultation papers. Chair
at Deloitte’s Solvency Working Group, said: “We have passed
another significant milestone in the Solvency II calendar and it is pleasing
to see that CEIOPS has received over 20,000 comments. These submissions
will give CEIOPS necessary material to begin its work on the final technical
advice that will be submitted to the European Commission next year.”
She acknowledged the “significant debate” sparked by the recent
set of papers, and said they also developed a number of “qualitative
requirements”.
HamishWilson expects higher gross and net pension liabilities
in the coming months for companies, particularly if they have year-ends
of 30 September or 31 December, with anticipation of soaring accounting
liabilities. “The margin between gilt yields and bond yields (the
credit spread) has started to fall back from its credit crunch-induced
peak as bond yields start to ease in response to the Bank of England’s
‘quantitative easing’”, explained Gary Tansley, senior
consultant at HamishWilson. “Although there has been a strong rally
in equity markets over the past few months, the FTSE 100 index has only
recovered to where it was at the end of September 2008. So, whilst the
stock market rally will have gone some way in mitigating the effect of
falling bond yields, accounting deficits are likely to be significantly
higher than a year ago.”
Raising Standards of Pensions Administration (RSPA) has launched a new version of its Risk Management Tool, designed to help pensions managers and trustees to focus effectively on this area as regulations and controls continue to increase. The product is internet-based and centred on a Risk Matrix. Risk Management Questionnaires are available for download and can be used to assess and report on areas of risk. It is available on the RSPA website, www.raisingadministrationstandards.com
The Committee of European Insurance and Occupational
Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) received more than 20,000 comments
from stakeholders on its second set of Consultation Papers on Solvency
II, Level 2 Implementing Measures, which closed to replies on Friday
11 September. The process took place in response to the European Commission’s
request to CEIOPS to fully consult stakeholders on advice on Level 2 implementing
measures by the end of October 2009. The 26 Consultation Papers were commented
on by 105 stakeholders, and CEIOPS will now analyse them and finalise
the advice to be adopted at its Members Meeting at the end of October.
The final advice from the first set of Papers will also be considered.
CEIOPS Members will be presented with a final third set of draft advice
at this meeting, for consultation until 11 December 2009. CEIOPS will
publish individual comments on its website in due course.
Capita Hartshead has upgraded and relaunched its data
integrity service, DatA+. The service can help trustees to review and
monitor how robust their scheme data is, and develop a programme for cleaning
up any problems, and can be used by existing Capita Hartshead administration
clients as well as a stand-alone service in the ‘lite’ version.
Northern Trust has opened a branch office in Stockholm, Sweden, as part of its expansion into the Nordics. The move will help the firm in its “strategy of serving [its] clients as close to their home market as possible”, said Biff Bowman, CEO of Northern Trust in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Madeleine Senior will take on the role of managing director of the Nordic region. She will oversee all activity across Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.
The deadline for comments on the Committee of
European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors’
(CEIOPS) consultation paper on Solvency II level 2 implementing measures
is 11 September 2009 at 16.00 CET. Comments must be submitted using the
template format provided by CEIOPS, and any received not using this, or
submitted after the deadline, will not be processed.
London & Colonial has strengthened its Self-Invested
Personal Pension (SIPP) offering with an online portal, allowing clients
to access their accounts. Clients will be able to view all the information
relating to their SIPP online, such as asset values, portfolio charting,
transfers and contributions received, and IFAs are also able to access
a consolidated list of all their SIPP members and details of those clients.
Edgewood Management LLC has decided
to continue its work with SEI, with a contract renewal
providing an operational outsourcing solution for Edgewood’s investment
products. SEI’s solution to Edgewood’s institutional, private
client and retail separate accounts covers account administration, performance
calculation and reporting, account and trade reconciliation, and manager
trade support. A robust data warehousing solution, providing online access
to both management and account-level data is also included.
Russell Investments has become the latest signatory to
the United Nations’ Principals for Responsible Investment (UN PRI),
demonstrating its commitment to environmental, social and corporate governance
(ESG) concerns. President and CEO, Andrew Doman, said: “Russell
became a UN PRI signatory in recognition of the increasingly widespread
client demand for strategic advice and solutions that take into account
ESG considerations. These are issues that impact not only our clients’
investment portfolio and long-term financial security, but also the business
and personal communities in which our clients live and work around the
world.”
The Rolls-Royce pension fund has taken the lead in the pensions race with a £1.4bn IAS 19 pension surplus. The fund however, of £6.5bn, said due to IAS 19 accounting and the volatile nature of discount rates, it recognises only £408million of the surplus on the company balance sheet. The success has been attributed to a switch to a liability drive investment (LDI) strategy in 2007.
