PensionsEurope has welcomed the alignment of reporting standards for pension funds by the European Central Bank (ECB) and European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA).

The comments were made as part of its input to the European Commission’s Roadmap on supervisory data strategy, in which it thanked the commission for “good and constructive dialogue over the past years on our concerns and suggestions”. PensionsEurope also offered to provide its technical expertise to the commission on how its strategy could best be implemented for pension funds.

It said that it agrees with the commission’s supervisory reporting fitness check conclusions that the current way of defining the reporting requirements and collecting data can be complex and lead to inefficiencies in the reporting process.

On the subject of reporting alignment by European institutions Pensions Europe said: “Over the past years, we have closely worked particularly with the ECB and EIOPA (but also with Eurostat and OECD) when they have been aligning their reporting standards for pension funds.

“We welcome that in many countries EIOPA, ECB, and national reporting requirements have been integrated into one reporting data stream. However, in some member states, there have been certain challenges in the coordination between some of the institutions/authorities.”

PensionsEurope also raised the issue of the cost of compiling data from various sources to fulfil many reporting requirements.

“Availability and cost of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data is a growing concern that needs to be urgently resolved taking into consideration the new disclosure requirements of the sustainable finance disclosure regulations (SFDR). Another concern is that for instance rating information mostly originates from the US companies, and this information might be biased in the EU context (there is recognition that availability of data is jurisdiction-dependent).

“We have welcomed that pension funds by themselves are not required to use the XBRL formats when reporting to the national competent authorities (NCAs), but the NCAs are free to choose their required reporting formats. However, now in practice, also many pension funds must report using the XBRL taxonomy, and repeated adjustment thereto, the XBRL has generated significant costs and administrative burdens to them.”

Furthermore, the association said that pension funds are concerned that their reporting deadlines to EIOPA/NCAs shall be brought forward in 2022 and 2024. Pension funds do not see any further need to shorten the deadlines and/or extend the scope of requirements, it said.

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