Programme of Work

The Programme of Work for 2013-2014 was approved by the Governing Membership at the Annual General Meeting held in Santaigo de Chile in October 2012. In addition to the completion and continuation projects already launched, the Techncial Committee agreed to start work on 3 new projects.

Good Practices for Internal Governance of Pension Supervisory Authorities: good practices related to IOPS Principle 10 of on Governance stating that “the supervisory authority should adhere to its own governance code and should be accountable.”
Project team: IOPS Secretariat

Update of IOPS Work on Costs and Fees: an analysis of the costs and fees applying to pension funds in different IOPS jurisdictions (possibly including the methodology for constructing cost indicators).
Project team: Cost Rica, Hong Kong, India, Italy. Continue cost work with World Bank/ OECD.

Stress Tests for DC Pension Funds: a qualitative study on stress testing of DC funds – exploring and comparatively assessing the current DC stress testing models and mechanisms in place, and possibly producing some high level ‘guidance’ drawn from the comparative analysis on the elements and factors that should be considered by both pension funds and pension supervisors in designing, applying and evaluating stress testing models.
Project team: Mexico, Australia

Annuities Distribution: an overview of how annuity products are sold in IOPS Member countries, an update of the Chilean and UK cases, along with any other countries which have introduced similar systems and requirements. Project Team: UK, Chile, IAIS

Supervising Auto-enrolment: a study on regulation and supervision of auto-enrolment procedures for pension plans (case studies of the experience in New Zealand, Italy and the UK and lesson learnt from some mandatory systems (such as Hong Kong and Australia). Project team: Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana

Target Replacement Rates for Supervisors:  further work on how to assess DC funds vs. some sort of replacement rate or income target - latest developments on this topic and indirect examples of how this sort of assessment takes place. Work to be launched once the stress testing project has been completed.

Tour d’horizon: IOPS Technical Committee's regular reviews of major developments related to the supervision of private pensions, based on information provided by members on major reform in their countries.

IOPS Toolkit: further work will be undertaken on the IOPS Toolkit. This would include updating and adding case study material to illustrate practical challenges which were encountered by IOPS members when moving to RBS and how these were overcome.
Project team: IOPS Secretariat.

Statistics: IOPS Members currently provide statistical data via the OECD’s Global Pensions Statistics Project.

ISSA/IOPS/OECD database: a comprehensive data source on the regulation of private pension systems worldwide previously coordinated by the International Social Security Association (ISSA), IOPS and OECD.
Project team: IOPS Secretariat, OECD Secretariat

Technical Assistance - outreach meetings: in 2013 a regional workshop for the African region may be held jointly with the African Development Bank.

Case Study:other international organizations (BIS/ IAIS) will be asked if they have case studies as part of their existing training material which could be appropriate for the IOPS Membership

Financial Consumer Protection: follow-up work related to the OECD High Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection adopted for G20.
Project team:IOPS Secretariat, OECD Secretariat, countries tbc. Also follow up with IAIS as their conduct of business work develops.

Other G20 work: the IOPS may also be asked to contribute sectoral expertise to other G20 projects.

Pensions and Financial Sector Stability: continuation of the dialogue with the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to ascertain whether the pension sector can be included in their macro stability work.

Partnering OECD Projects: for 2013, the OECD is working on the following topics, which the IOPS could potential contribute to: Guidelines on Licensing of Pension Entities, Long-term Investing, Longevity Assumptions, Retirement Savings Adequacy.