The ASIC report into death benefit claims revealing the devastating impact of poor industry practices on grieving Australians has again highlighted the pressing need for change. While some funds have taken up the cudgels, others are still playing hardball on improving their service offering.
A Retirement Income Covenant obligation notwithstanding, there is still a paucity of these complex products on offer. The Advice Through Superannuation draft legislation might offer a way forward.
French tax reform boosted retirement savings, with higher-income, older workers contributing more after the 2019 Loi Pacte introduced pre-tax incentives, according to an Amundi white paper analysing 1.4 million workers.
With uncertainty looming from Trump tariffs to the impact of DeepSeek on AI, Amundi is focussing on global equity opportunities, diversifying with gold and maintaining a tactical approach to duration.
Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.