Perspectives

Innovation: Is AI in the pension industry at an inflection point? Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools capable of analysing large data sets are becoming increasingly understood and accessible.

The great divide. Pension scheme trustee boards and sponsoring companies will wake up on 1st January in a very different place to where they were a year ago.

As a covenant advisor in the post-2008 financial crisis world, I’ve spent the last decade focused on employer-related events and what they mean for the employer covenants within my trustee client base. Hamish Reeves, Director, Cardano Advisory.

Discover: AI powered covenant. Complexity and cost often put traditional covenant assessments out of reach for smaller schemes or scheme sections. This can be a problem given the importance of covenant to member outcomes, increased focus from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) on covenant, and draft DWP legislation requiring trustees to assess covenant strength.

We’re watching the COP 27 discussions from afar. In some respects, there were both reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic going into COP27. Here are our reflections on what has been going on.

While many pension funds have made commitments to integrate ESG issues into their scheme journey planning, we think that there is further work to do. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of everything a trustee needs to know about how to incorporate sustainability into journey planning.

Cardano Group response. The draft Regulations are heading in the right direction in seeking to support trustees and employers in planning their scheme funding over the longer term and we are supportive of the intention to improve risk management through covenant-driven investment and funding strategies and a long-term objective of reducing reliance on covenant.

Whilst insurers are exposed to the same array of risks as DB schemes, we expect them to be better placed to deal with the recent market turmoil than most pension schemes. Here we explain why.

Eyes are on investments and pension scheme liquidity, what does this mean from a covenant perspective? Here are four things trustees can be doing right now.

Pension risk transfer market: Entering unchartered territory. The UK pension risk transfer market is arriving at a unique juncture, driven by evolving supply and demand factors, regulatory change, and macroeconomic and capital market volatility. The impact on end game strategies could be far reaching.

2022 began with the hope of reduced market uncertainty: COVID-19 has been on the decline, and a general pick-up in economic activity has been observed. In practice, the year is being shaped by macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds, and against the prospect of stagflation over the horizon.