GCC pensions special – April 2012

In the past few weeks, there has been a flurry of articles on the topic of pensions in the GCC. I have selected for you the most informative of these articles so you can get a helicopter view. GCC general Pensions schemes for Nationals in the GCC should diversify their investment approaches in order to…

An update on the project on expat retirement schemes in the UAE

The day before the 2012 ASHRM conference officially started last week, I was fortunate to be invited at the inaugural breakfast for the event. Besides the usual networking with a small group of select participants, we were given two presentations, one by Mercer (the results of a survey they specially performed for the conference), and…

Pensions landscape – Europe and GCC part II

My latest post was covering the aging population in Europe, and the impact it has on pensions. Today we will go through what is happening in the GCC. Expat pensions In the mean time in the GCC, the situation is pretty different. Here, we have very young countries where only the local citizens are eligible…

Pensions landscape – Europe and GCC part I

I was recently in discussion with an Emirati friend. The topic of our conversation was retirement/pensions and how different it is between Europe and the GCC. We talked about the pension landscape in both regions, and what is happening towards pensions approaches as a result. In today’s post I will cover Europe, and my next…

A reaction on raising pension contributions

Today’s post is a reaction to this GlobalPensions.com article commenting on employer contribution rates for retirement in some New York State agencies. My comment is mostly linked to the % of contributions. “The contribution rate for the Employee Retirement System (ERS) will increase from 16.3% of salaries to 18.9% in fiscal year 2012-13, while the…