Europe’s population is ageing due to increased life expectancy and lower birth rates.
This change in demographic balance would be an overwhelming burden on national pension systems and raises significant concerns about the adequacy of pensions provision. While pensions policy remains a national competence, the European Union, as part of its Capital Markets Union (CMU), is encouraging private pensions uptake by European citizens to ensure they have sufficient resources to draw upon in retirement under the PEPP (Pan-European Personal Pension Product) regime. These are individual voluntary private pensions designed to encourage individual long-term savings for retirement and enable pension portability across Member States. The legislation introduces standardisation of core product features such as transparency requirements, investment rules and contract information.
In 2019, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a regulation for the introduction of PEPPs, which came into force on 22nd March 2022.
AMICE members are important providers of pension products to Europeans and support the objective, set out by policymakers, of increasing the level of pension provision across the European Union. It is important that the vast amount of knowledge and practical know-how that mutual/cooperative insurers possess is reflected in policy design and rollout. AMICE has underlined the significance of cost efficiency and transparency in delivering private pensions, ensuring that the real costs associated in delivering pensions to Europeans is reflected in policy offerings. This also ensures that a sufficient number of insurance market entrants, particularly smaller mutual/cooperative insurance entities, are able to maintain a presence in the competitive European pension/insurance marketplace.
AMICE response to EIOPA’s consultation on the proposed approaches and considerations for EIOPA’s technical advice, Implementing and regulatory technical standards under the PEPP regulation