Articles on Pensions

KPMG published 3-part series on pensions in The Star last few days. Summary of some key points:

• Public pension: social insurance, covers elderly as well as citizen with a need e.g. disabled, lengthening of life expectancy and declining birth rates make the model too expensive
• Occupational pension: employees are rewarded for loyalty, risk of employers going bankrupt, risk of benefits be scaled down when employer is in financial difficulties
• Provident fund: e.g. EPF
• Private pension: intends to cover self-employed and also as top-up scheme for others, regular income either monthly or yearly, government can provide guarantee in case of scheme failure, tax incentives to encourage public to save, number of operators should be limited to achieve economies of scale, various funds available to choose, financial advisors involved to help consumers to choose

Source: The Star 1, 2 & 3

Other articles on pensions appearing in The Star over the weekend cover:

• Australian superannuation system: employers required to contribute 9% of employees salary, 300,000 superannuation funds in operation currently, employees choose which fund to pay to
• Chile pension system: employees contribute 10%, 6 private pension funds to choose from, fund switching allowed

Source: The Star 1 & 2