I once read that only ~10% of workers are on the minimum BVG plan.
As @Luk_nuts said, majority of people have a lower conversion rate due to extra-mandatory contributions in their pension plan. In fact, the conversion rate was on average 5.3% in 2024 according to CHS PP and it’s been lower than 6.8% since many years.
I think he’s talking about the 15 vintage years that receive subsidies which is close to half of the current workers, even though only 10-15% will actually get less with this Revision.
Classic compromise of a compromise of a compromise.
Yes, that part is certainly not ideal. However, at least that’s only a temporary downside. If I remember correctly, all the non-temporary changes seem reasonable. One could certainly argue that they don’t go far enough and it certainly won’t fix all the pillar 2 issues, but I think it’s a step in the right direction (again, ignoring transitional measures) and it’s unrealistic to expect more at once.
That’s the whole issue right there. Why does it have to be pensioners?
If pension funds were less risk-averse, they could easily get better returns. Instead of giving a measily 1.25% return per year, pensioners could get multiples of that. The long-term horizon of a pension fund should allow it to allocate a large proportion of funds to equities.
I think the issue is that funds are not allowed to lose a lot of money (I guess to avoid runs, which would screw current retirees getting a pension). That prevents doing very risky investments.
I think it’s much harder if we don’t also get rid of annuity (those need some stability). And I doubt there is much appetite in the population to remove the annuity option.
And why not merge the 1st and 2nd pillars? We’d increase the AVS tax (5.3%) to 10%+, but instead of falling into a common pot, it would represent each individual’s pension provision. In return, it would be possible to contribute more to the 3rd pillar by, for example, allowing employers to provide their employees with a list of providers (and/or to let employees choose their provider from outside the proposed list) with a choice of risk allocation. The employee would contribute via his salary a fixed amount corresponding to 1/12 of the maximum possible contribution (let’s imagine CHF 10,000) and the employer would contribute the other half or 1/24?
On the other hand, there would be a huge disparity between low earners and high earners (who would have a huge pension), but at least everyone would have a bare minimum much higher than the AVS minimum + a 2nd pillar with a rotten return or zero provider.
A simple idea that will probably never happens (and perhaps stupid?).
Several reasons but mainly diversifying the retirement system. 1st pillar is mostly influenced by demographics and 2nd pillar mostly by market returns.
An option would be to globalize the annuity paying part (i.e.: everybody enters the same pension fund when they go into retirement if they choose to get an annuity, with whatever capital they have accumulated through their situation) and get a set annuity based on that capital. We can debate about whether to have it as a public entity, a private entity with a public mandate or many private entities with risk pooling.
That way, you’d have competition between funds on the accumulating part and would have separated inputs from new contributors from the level of pensions of pensionees. You loose smoothing through different market sequences, though (it could be difficult to cover the pensions of retirees experiencing a prolonged dip/recession).
It would also be difficult to cover the risk part of the second pillar but I’d say that part could be handled through more coverage through the first pillar and private solutions for high earners wanting to increase their coverage (edit: thinking about it, just make it part of the competitive part of the equation, with several funds offering different coverages and insured people choosing their plan).
Any new solution implemented would have drawbacks. Those would have to be weighted vs the current captive environment and the subsidizing of retirees by the working contributors, happening currently.
Europeans, including Swiss, are known for not wanting to manage their financial affairs and taking care themselves about their retirement. A huge majority files investment in the same category as scams and gambling. But probably they will have to learn.
There will be no more self-directed investment than available now with 3a. There also will be no opt-out from the obligatory pension insurance. Both would decrease AuMs and make paying pensions, which is a social issue, not a financial one, more difficult.
If you look closer, all (or most) proposed measures are aiming at increasing the amount of money managed by pension funds.
Little anecdote: My pension fund publishes the number of members, also for 1e including the selected strategies. More than half in 1e select the 100% money market strategy, less than 15% the highest stock allocation.
Note that’s not the total pension fund, just the part qualifying for 1e.
For the non-mandatory, non-1e part, the pension funds I know already have reforms like this (contribute more, earlier and reduce conversation rate, while compensating older employees for any resulting loss) already implemented.
I haven’t followed the revision, recently, but if I remember correctly the opposition was mainly from the employer lobby in industries with lots of low-income and part-time employees.
Let’s see how the vote goes
This is not very representative, as it was discussed in some threads. If you have 1e and are leaving your job, you have to liquidate that part of portfolio no matter what. I can imagine few schemes to circumference that problem, but I guess most people prefer to not bother and stay in cash. Arguably, if you have 1e, you probably also have a significant post-tax portfolio.
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