The current draft Future Pensions Act would make pension experiments designed to help self-employed savers “impossible”, the Dutch Pensions Federation has warned, calling for a "substantial" amendment to the act to correct this.

In its response to the government consultation, the federation noted that the June 2019 Pension Agreement had aimed to find solutions for self-employed persons who accrued too little supplementary pension, leading to a number of pension funds, alongside self-employed organisations, to prepare an experimental pension scheme.

It explained that such experiments require a deviation from existing legislation, in an effort to remove the barriers to pension savings and to offer suitable pension products for the self-employed.

However, it warned that the draft Future of Pensions Act offers “insufficient scope” and is therefore not able to allow such pensions experiments for self-employed savers, highlighting this as an “expensive and missed opportunity”.

In light of this, the federation has called for a “substantial adjustment” to the bill to ensure unnecessary time is not lost, highlighting such amendments as the only way to ensure an attractive pension product for the self-employed can be bought to fruition.

In particular, it has called for an amendment that will lead to a suitable pension product for the self-employed, a lump-sum exempt amount for the self-employed, automatic data exchange between pension funds and the Chamber of Commerce, the option of continuing pension accrual, and an experiment of automatic participation with opt out in addition to opting in variants.

The federation has called on the cabinet to include the five aforementioned preconditions in the legislation, to ensure a "structural solution to the social issue" of the lack of sufficient pension accrual by self-employed people.

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