News - Irish Life Corporate Business
We are delighted that Irish Life Corporate Business has been shortlisted for three awards in the Irish Pensions Awards 2021: the Communication Award, the Excellence in DC Award and the Pension Scheme Administrator of the Year.
Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) are committed to sustainability in pension investment and are leaders in Responsible Investment in Ireland. ILIM’s approach of exclusions, integration and engagement is making the difference today to deliver a better, more sustainable tomorrow.
What is new?
We understand that you want to see measures and metrics to help understand how the ILIM investment strategies are rated within an ESG context. To address this, a lot of work has been done in the background to update the fund factsheets with ESG relevant information to keep you and pension plan members informed how their funds meet Responsible Investment criteria.
So you, our clients and the pension plan members, know their money is working hard for them to create and preserve long-term investment growth and also build a more sustainable future for all of us.
The Pensions Act requires every pension Trust to appoint a Registered Administrator for their schemes and for the Registered Administrator to re-register annually with the Pensions Authority.
Irish Life will be completing the Registration with the Pensions Authority in September 2021 for the schemes that we will be the Registered Administrator for.
What is IORP II?
IORP II is an EU directive that sets new pensions standards to be passed into law by each EU member state. In the Republic of Ireland, IORP II legislation was introduced on April 27, 2021.
On July 22, 2021 the Pensions Authority published their draft code of practice, which outlines the minimum standards required for trustees of occupational pension plans and trust RACs to meet the new regulations. The draft code will be open for public consultation for 8 weeks until September 16, 2021 and the Authority has invited any relevant stakeholders to submit their views on it in the interim. The final code will be published in the week of November 15, 2021.
There are 5 key pillars of the Pension Authority’s draft code of practice for trustees of *DC plans, which we’ve summarised below.
The Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) believe in building a more sustainable future for us all. Investing money in a responsible way helps make that a reality and is more likely to create and preserve long-term investment growth. ILIM invest in companies that manage their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risks better and believe you can grow your investment fund and do good at the same time.
ILIM have now published the "Responsible Investment Review for 2020.
Where the recent transposition of the legislation gave some element of assurance after such a long period of anticipation, the Pension Authority’s release gave further clarity on 13 May 2021- in particular around the timelines for compliance - and the sense that there is definite forward momentum.
A long build up, like the one we’ve seen with IORP II can lead to widespread uncertainty, which can impact the ability of plan sponsors and trustees to fully prepare and plan for the significant change that is coming.
After the Pension’s Authority release late last week plan sponsors and trustees have a much more tangible timeline to work towards now and, though there are still some key elements that remain somewhat unclear, what is very clear and certain is this: the time to start preparing for the changes ahead is now.
Regulations have been published this week by Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys, to transpose the EU IORP II Directive into Irish legislation. These regulations introduce higher standards for pension scheme governance. The regulations will apply to all company pension schemes, but there are different timelines depending on the size of a scheme.
In March 2020 we introduced a six-month delay (notice period) for withdrawals or switches from our Irish and UK Property Funds.
This six-month notice period is now being removed from our Pension Property Funds on the 16 April 2021.
From this date any withdrawal or switch requests will be processed without delay.
Supporting employees when they need it most: During 2020 we paid over €64m in Income Protection benefits to employees who were unable to work due to illness or injury.
Two recent pieces of legislation have been enacted which increase the onus on providers and Trustees in disclosing how they have regard to RI practices when managing their investments. These are
- the Shareholders Rights Directive (SRDII), and
- the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (SFDR).
Irish Life are adopting a principles-based approach to these to ensure that we meet the requirements involved. As required under SFDR we have updated our website with an explanation of how Irish Life approaches sustainability risks in investment decisions relating to savings, investment and pension products.
