Defined Contribution (DC) Master Trusts have become the arrangement of choice for many. In previous articles I’ve discussed the strong governance regime that they have in place and why this is so important. This article considers risks from three different viewpoints and examines why Master Trusts are so effective in reducing them.
Supporting a sustainable COVID-19 recovery through ESG engagement
Investor engagement on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues has evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream investor activity. This year, we are celebrating 20 years of engagement, having engaged more than 5,500 companies across 87 countries during this time period.
Trustees are legally required to have adequate internal controls in place for their scheme, and this includes procedures to manage risk. To comply with the Pensions Regulator’s Code of Practice on internal controls, trustees must be able to evidence the internal controls that ensure they remain satisfied that their scheme is being well managed in accordance with the law and the scheme’s rules.
Psychological research has shown that human decisionmaking is subject to numerous fallacies and biases. Experts’ decisions across a wide range of critical domains, including medicine and finance, are also demonstrably susceptible and so understanding bias and how it affects decisions is crucial for improving decisionmaking in a wide range of contexts. Funded by the Actuarial Research Centre of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and with the support of Aon, who provided us with access to pension trustees, we conducted a series of controlled experiments designed to test for the use of decision heuristics in trustees.
Recourse and your journey plan can you get there from here?
The strength of the covenant will, in part, determine how much risk a scheme can take on its funding journey and, therefore, how long a scheme will take to achieve its long-term funding target. The starting point in evaluating the covenant is understanding where the legal obligation to your pension scheme lies.
A tough ask: saving for an ill-defined event at an indeterminate date
How can you encourage people to save for retirement when they can’t be sure what retirement will mean, when it will happen, or how much they’ll need for it? Laura Stewart-Smith, Aviva’s Head of Workplace Savings and Retirement, looks at recent research to understand this dilemma – and how we might resolve it – within our present age of ambiguity.
