Work Programme

Programme of Work

The Programme of Work for 2010-2011 was approved by the Governing Membership at the Annual General Meeting held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in October 2009. In addition to the completion and continuation of guidelines and projects already launched, the Techncial Committee agreed to start work on 2-3 new projects and to draft further sets of operational guidelines. Detailed project updates are available on the members' area of the website. Project leaders are designated by an asterisk *.

Programme of Work 2010-2011

Guidelines

Review of the IOPS Principles: the IOPS Principles of Private Pension Supervision were approved by the IOPS membership in 2005 (with revisions following a pubic consultation in 2006). Since then the Organisation has developed a considerable body of work – though its operational guidelines, working papers and other documents – which has raised suggestions for how the Principles could be developed or extended. Self-assessments by IOPS members against the Principles have also uncovered potential room for improvement.   A review of the Principles will therefore be undertaken in 2010. The methodology for assessing IOPS members against the IOPS Principles will also be updated, and IOPS members will be encouraged to continue to undertake self-assessments. Project team: IOPS Secretariat

OECD/IOPS Good Practices for Pension Funds’ Risk-management Systems: drawing on a background paper and seminar on the topic held in 2009, the IOPS and OECD aim jointly to produce good practices on this topic. A first draft of these good practices will be discussed by the Technical Committee at the October 2009 meeting, with the good practices targeted for approval at the 2010 Annual General Meeting. Project team:IOPS Secretariat, OECD Secretariat

Guidelines for Risk-based Supervision: building on the launch of the Toolkit for RBS in 2010, a set of guidelines covering risk-based supervision will be drafted in 2011, with targeted approval at the 2011 AGM.   Project team: IOPS Secretariat

Projects

Risk-based Supervision Toolkit: a major project was launched by the IOPS in 2008 to produce a Toolkit for Risk-based Supervision (RBS). The ultimate goal of the toolkit is to provide practical guidance for supervisory authorities on how to introduce and develop a risk-based system of supervision for pension funds. It was decided to break the toolkit up into the following modules, which have been developed in detail and made as practical as possible, each containing various elements such as check lists, guidance and examples. Having now assembled most of the material for the Toolkit, the IOPS aims to release the Toolkit in 2010.

• Introduction to RBS – providing a definition of RBS, how it applies to the pension field, why it is being adopted and challenges and lessons learnt by supervisory authorities which have made such a move.
• Module 1 ‘Preparation for RBS’ -explaining the legislative environment, supervisory organisation and industry preparation required to begin to move towards a risk-based approach to supervision – including a check list of these conditions.
• Module 2 ‘Data Collection’ - explaining what information supervisors need to receive in order to perform their risk-based assessments
• Module 3 ‘Quantitative Assessment of Risk’ – describing how quantitative tools, such as stress tests, can be incorporated into a RBS framework.
• Module 4 ‘ Risk Scoring Models’ - describing how to build a supervisory risk-scoring matrix for categorizing supervised entities
• Module 5 ‘Supervisory Responses’ - describing how to align the supervisory response to identified risks.

Supervising DC pensions: this project aims to draw on previous work and reports of the IOPS to provide an overview on issues which are particularly important when supervising defined contribution pension systems (including the information provided to member of DC plans, the oversight of the payout phase etc.). A first draft of the Working Paper on the topic was discussed in 2009, and the paper is planned for released in 2010. Project team: UK, Italy, Slovak Republic, Spain, Turkey

Regulation and Supervision of Alternative Investments Risk Management: following the release of the IOPS Good Practices on this topic in 2008, Members suggested undertaking a “stock take” to examine how the good practices operate and are applied in member countries. This project will be undertaken jointly with the OECD, and will be launched in 2010 in order to coordinate with the OECD’s POW. A questionnaire on the topic will be proposed at the February meeting in Basel. Results of this questionnaire with a draft report based on delegates responses will be presented at a joint seminar on the topic to be held with the OECD at their joint meetings in June. This will be combined with more detailed case studies on risk-management practices, which will be drafted and led by the project leader, Netherlands. The final report will be targeted for release as a Working Paper during 2011: Project team: Netherlands, Namibia, Germany

Information for DC Scheme Members: Part II of the DC information project is targeted to be launched during 2011, examining how supervisory authorities themselves can act as a source of comparative, objective information for pension fund members.  Project team: Italy, Chile, Austria, Spain, Korea

Financial Education: following a presentation by the OECD of its project on financial education, the IOPS Technical Committee expressed interest in participating in work in this field. The IOPS aims to participate in OECD work in 2011 examining areas of financial education where pension supervisors play an important role. This work will be presented at the Pensions Global Forum/ OECD Financial Education Conference to be held in Cape Town, October 2011.Project team: Chile, India, UK, South Africa, Kenya

Pension Fund Coverage: issues surrounding the coverage of pension fund systems, particularly in the context of developing economies, will be presented at the Global Forum to be held in Cape Town in October 2011. Project team: India, Nigeria, Kenya