Global pension industry investment trends

Pension industry globally is facing mounting pressures

Pension funds industry across the globe has been historically challenged with generating sufficient returns to provide adequate and sustainable retirement incomes for its members. While the rapid rebound of the markets after a sharp correction in 2020 has provided some respite, this alone will not be sufficient to improve the long-term solvency of pension plans.
As a result, pension funds are looking at broader range of investment choices and asset classes (e.g., private markets) to improve yield and explore opportunities to optimize costs.

In addition, there’s increased pressure from participants to adopt responsible investing practices by incorporating ESG principles in their investment decisions.

An optimized operating model is what will set funds apart

These pension industry trends call for an agile and scalable operating model that reduces time to market for new investment strategies, enables adoption of technology innovation to provide a competitive edge, provides mature data management capabilities to improve decision-making, and improves operational efficiency.

What are pension funds across the globe doing to stay competitive and address these challenges? We partnered with Institutional Investor and SimCorp to capture the views of more than 140 investment, operations, and technology leaders at pension funds in North America, Europe, and APAC.

The report provides insights on several key issues:

• How are pension funds exploring a broader range of investment choices and new asset trends like private markets to improve yields? What are the challenges involved in adopting these complex investments strategies?
• How are investment strategies evolving in light of growing commitments to ESG across North America, Europe and APAC?
• As pension funds look to improve efficiency and optimize costs, what are the consideration factors for insourcing vs outsourcing?
• What are the key data management challenges facing the pension industry today? How are pension funds planning to advance their data management capabilities so they can improve decision-making and reporting.