Montag in Berlin, erster Tag der HB-bAV-Tagung: Auf dem Podium EIOPA-Präsident Gabriel Bernardino: Seine Rede: „Sustainable finance – sustainable pensions?“. Dort stellt der Portugiese eine interessante Verbindung her. LEITERbAV dokumentiert Auszüge.
Gleich zu Beginn seiner Rede wirft der Aufsichts-Chef einen kurze Blick auf die Grundproblematik:
„Living considerably longer than ever before is certainly a positive fact, but at the same time this presents a number of challenges and opens up questions how to reserve for retirement.“
Folge ist:
„…that in Europe, yet also in many other developed and developing countries, not just the pensions gap, but also the funding gap of pension funds, is increasing and will be hard to close. Recent corporate failings showed the impact on the safety of individuals’ future retirement income in case of significant underfunding of pension funds.“
Ergo Perspektive nicht rosig:
„The outlook on the sustainability of pension promises, from state, occupational pension funds or private savings, is anything but comforting.“
Das habe auch der – bekanntlich nicht unumstrittene – Stresstest sein Hauses belegt:
„The results showed that the European DC occupational pension sector has, on average, insufficient assets to meet pension liabilities on the national balance sheet, both in the baseline and adverse market scenario. The shortfalls on the common balance sheet – EUR 349 billion in the baseline and EUR 702 billion in the adverse scenario – would need to be covered by increased sponsor support and/or by benefit reductions. The vulnerabilities increased when applying a common, market-consistent valuation.“
Das bedeutet Gefahren und Handlungsbedarf:
„Concluding, sponsors of over a quarter of IORPs might face severe challenges meeting their obligations, so the pensions sector’s vulnerabilities could spill-over to the real economy either through the adverse impact on sponsors and/or on beneficiaries through benefit reductions.“
Was wird EIOPA also tun?
„In 2018, EIOPA will also be focusing on the following tasks contributing to securing the future sustainability of pensions while taking into account the protection of pensions’ scheme members: Our goal is to ensure the smooth and consistent implementation of new requirements, provide national supervisory authorities with practical solutions, stimulating consistent, efficient and effective supervisory practices across the European Union.“
Dazu gehören auch wohlbekannte Rahmen:
„EIOPA will also further pursue its recommendation for a common framework for risk assessment and transparency, providing a realistic and risk-sensitive view of the sustainability of defined benefit promises. […] Fostering the take-up of the common framework in national supervision we will facilitate EIOPA’s biennial EU-wide stress tests of the occupational pensions sector by establishing a common, market- consistent language.“
Außerdem mehr ESG:
„In designing next year’s stress test, EIOPA will also explore the best way to consider risks from investing in ‘brown’ or stranded assets, as well as risks from climate change.“
Wichtig bekanntlich auch zusätzliche Auskunftspflichten:
„EIOPA will also be focusing on enhancing the availability of occupational pensions’ data at European level by developing one single framework where regular annual and quarterly information is requested from national supervisory authorities.
In order to further enhance EIOPA’s monitoring and assessment of market developments in the occupational pensions sector to foster the protection of pension scheme members and beneficiaries, to undertake economic analysis and to properly analyse financial stability implications, EIOPA developed a relevant, yet fairly limited, reporting set of Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provisions’ data. The pensions’ data framework will be broadly aligned with similar European and international reporting standards – like the European Central Bank, Eurostat, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – to ensure an efficient use of information.“
Der Zeitplan dazu ist knackig:
„We are planning to finalise the requirements in the second quarter this year, using the same reporting timeline as the European Central Bank, which published its Regulation last month. The first quarterly data to be reported will refer to the third quarter of 2019 and the first annual data to end 2019.“
Schließlich kam Bernardino noch auf PEPP
zu sprechen, allerdings bemerkenswerterweise nicht ohne einen expliziten Bezug des Vorstoßes zur Lage der bAV herzustellen (Hervorhebungen durch LEITERbAV):
„To find relevant solutions to the challenges European pensions face, one needs to seriously appreciate the different starting points of the European Member States: there are a number of countries that do not have any – or only a few – occupational pension funds, some of the countries have fairly young pension markets and state or occupational pensions rely on employers and employed citizens contributing to the systems, whereas the workforce is increasingly mobile and is more and more characterised by unconventional careers. That is why EIOPA is convinced that a Pan-European Personal Pension product (PEPP) is a promising legislative initiative, and if successfully implemented it will be a tangible improvement for the European citizens.
Das Redemanuskript Bernardinos findet sich hier.
