Pension transparency needs a benchmark

In a first formal collaboration, Top1000funds.com and CEM Benchmarking have teamed up to develop the Global Pension Transparency Benchmark (GPTB). The GPTB establishes a new global benchmark that brings a focus to transparency in a bid to improve pension outcomes for members.

Transparency, or lack of it around costs and other issues, has been a problem area for pension funds over many years, and in the industry there is room for improvement in this area. Transparency is a positive word – it is about being honest and open with stakeholders. With this benchmark we offer a standard for global pension systems and funds, to aspire to, and in doing so emphasise the importance of the need for clarity and openness. CEM has had a long history focusing on cost and financial value for money outcomes.

This broadens that view and establishes a new global benchmark that also includes key inputs associated with value generation that are obtained from public disclosures such as governance, strategy and structure. It also incorporates sustainability/ESG which pension funds and their stakeholders increasingly consider to be an important and necessary ‘value’ element. Cost transparency emerged as an important issue for pension funds post-GFC and many in the industry championed it.

With this new benchmark we want to reframe the narrative away from a narrow and negative focus on costs to a more holistic and positive concept of transparency and include value generation, governance and strategy, and sustainability.

Source: Top 1000 Funds