FEATURE
SRP Europe 2022: Solutions for pension and insurance investors The Priips saga, with its sector heroes, regulatory disputes, implementation frustrations and (even) parliamentary uprisings, has finally come full circle.
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s state pension systems struggle to meet the needs of retirement investors structured products are seen as a viable alternative. Structured investments and solutions featuring structured products are providing ‘fresh opportunities’ to traditional pension and insurance providers as traditional products are failing to deliver, according to panellists at the SRP Europe 2022 Conference held on 24 March, in London. The panel discussion kicked off with slides prepared by moderator Walter Cegarra, CEO of FNZ Q-Hub showing that the ratio of working contributors or pensioners has continuously declined to around 1.7 in 2018 over the past 15 years in France. “This is a system that’s going to become less and less sustainable. Therefore, there is a need to go towards more private based solutions,” said Cegarra, adding that there’s decreasing reliance on government sponsored pensions in Italy.
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Meanwhile, people are still relying heavily on the general account type solution offered by insurance companies, according to Cegarra - data 2020 from French Insurance shows that general account represents 31% of the solutions followed by securities and liquidity. The need for insurance companies to diversity the portfolios beyond traditional assets has led to a growing momentum for private solutions over the last few years, said Romain Sellem, director and structured solutions, global equities at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The most important change is the substitution rate from the accumulation position to retirement and people have started to understand that they need to fill this gap with private solutions, according to Vincenzo Pinto, head of individual saving solutions at Generali. “Investors remain focused on traditional solutions due to the demography although insurance companies are in the middle of this new environment,” he said. “We're starting to see some
