Two-thirds of households are setting aside money for retirement, taking advantage of either a registered pension plan, a registered retirement savings plan or a tax-free savings account, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it released the latest batch of numbers from the 2016 census. Of 14 million households, 65.2 per cent made a contribution in 2015 […]
Mercer is introducing outsourced governance for employers with defined contribution pension plans. The offering, Mercer Future Wise, will delegate employers’ plan governance to a team at Mercer, providing access to investment managers, competitive fees and governance and oversight, according to a press release. It will also provide employers with insight into their plan members’ engagement […]
While defined contribution plans were a small piece of the pension market when Benefits Canada first rolled off the presses in 1977, the Co-operative Superannuation Society had already been operating for almost 40 years by that point. Founded in 1939 in Saskatoon, the society’s pension plan is one of the country’s oldest and largest defined […]
Back in the 1990s, senior management at the Co-operators Group Ltd. decided to be more generous with its defined contribution pension plan. While most Canadian companies with defined contribution offerings match employee contributions — often up to five per cent of salary — the Co-operators upped its plan on both sides of the equation by […]
Despite British Columbia’s introduction of provisions for target-benefit pension plans in 2015, a report from the province’s regulator suggests the option has seen a slow uptake. Only 30 pension plans with target-benefit components were registered as of Dec. 31, 2016, according to a report released by the Financial Institutions Commission of British Columbia on Wednesday. Many of […]
The average income replacement ratio of capital accumulation plans in the second quarter of 2017 has remained stagnant since the start of the year, according to Eckler Ltd.’s latest capital accumulation plan income tracker. The report noted that decreasing investment returns during the quarter weren’t significant enough to change the income replacement ratio, which remains […]
The Ontario government’s announcement in its April budget that it will be addressing the regulatory framework related to defined contribution pension plans has done little to quell the debate about whether modernization and expansion of the existing rules is necessary or desirable. Those in favour say that, as defined contribution plans continue to grow in […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is recommending a number of ways the federal government can help ensure Canadians’ retirement income security in its submission for the 2018 federal budget. With more Canadians moving into capital accumulation plans, people need to have better options available to help secure their retirement, wrote the organization, noting there’s […]
In June, the European Commission proposed a new voluntary pension aimed at helping individuals who move around the continent to save for retirement. If passed, employers, banks and insurance companies will be able to offer the portable pan-European pension to European citizens. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority will regulate the pension. “All in […]
There’s little doubt that working Canadians want a secure source of retirement income. The challenge for the pension industry is how to deliver the desired retirement income in a sustainable manner. In April 2017, the Canadian Public Pension Leadership Council published the results of a survey that provided key takeaways that will be useful to governments, policy-makers […]