
Find your Pension!
Guest commentary on establishing a European Pension Tracking Service (ETS).
von/by Claudia Wegner-Wahnschaffe, Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder/Pension Institution of the Federal Republic and Länder (VBL) – 11/2018
Given the age pyramid and
the issue of pension adequacy in the future, it is becoming increasingly
important for workers to be well-informed about old-age pensions and to have an
overview of their individual pension entitlements. This is a big challenge for
many people, because the topic is complex, and information about pensions often
contains technical terms and is not easy to understand.
The situation is
particularly difficult for mobile workers who have acquired pension rights while
working in different countries. It is difficult enough for these workers to
keep track of their existing entitlements, let alone try to estimate what the
situation will be like in their old age. Researchers are particularly affected
because they often work in temporary employment contracts of less than three years
and then change their research institution.
For many years, the
FindyourPension project has offered support to this occupational group with a
wide range of information and the possibility to save their own pension history
on the findyourpension.eu website under ‘MyTrack’. The project is an initiative of the Pension
Institution of the Federal Republic and Länder (VBL) and has been funded since
2011 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with the support
of many pension funds and providers across Europe.
The feedback from mobile
users is consistently positive. Approximately 1,800 researchers have received
training as part of the consultation days regularly conducted at research
institutes by the project team in cooperation with staff from the German Pension
Fund for Miners, Railway Workers and Seafarers. This direct feedback also means
that we have been able to identify room for improvement. As a result, the
FindyourPension website has just been updated and went online with a new look in
October. The interface is now more user-friendly, and the search function has
been expanded so that users can search by country and pension scheme without
first having to enter an employer.
A
target group only has to be selected if this is necessary to classify the responsible
pension institution according to work status of the beneficiary or other user
characteristics. In order to increase awareness and to reach as many other
users as possible, FindyourPension has also been on Twitter since November this
year: https://twitter.com/FindyourPension.
Different user perspectives
The new website also
introduces a user-friendly design that is based on layers. The first basic layer
is aimed at users who have little prior knowledge of old-age pensions and
simply want to get an overview of all relevant information. Users who want more
detailed information can access the second advanced layer via the Pension ABCs
section of the website. These are in FAQ format and are divided into three life
situations. The advanced layer is almost finished and available online. The
basic layer is still being created and will be published on the website in
stages.
FindyourPension Icons
Following the example of
the usual information standards for products, icons are used in the basic layer
to present the contents in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. They make it
possible to find, classify and compare information. The icons only represent
the key questions or information of the pension schemes listed.
For all mobile workers in Europe
In recent years, a
network of over 50 pension scheme providers and institutions has grown. This
cooperation has also resulted in close contact with some national pension tracking
services and the members of the former TTYPE project, which examined and
confirmed the feasibility of a European Pension Tracking Service (ETS). Whenever
we presented the FYP website, we were asked why it was limited to mobile
researchers.
After two years of
intensive collaboration with some of the TTYPE participants and four other
well-known partners, this year we have successfully launched a joint project
proposal as part of the PROGRESS axis of the EU Programme for Employment and
Social Innovation (EaSI), (Call for proposals on social innovation and national
reforms).
Under the proposal, the
results from TTYPE and the current FindyourPension initiative and website will
be used to start constructing an ETS. During the three-year project period, a
pilot will be created and a host organisation will be established. In addition
to the VBL and the European association AEIP, participants in the project
include the Belgian Federal Pensions Service (FPS) and Sigedis, Dutch partners
PGGM and APG (large occupational pension funds), and Swedish partners the
Swedish Pensions Agency and the Swedish tracking service Minpension.se.
To ensure the exchange
of pension information across pillars for mobile workers in Europe, all pension
sources and pillars need to work together. As is well known, beneficiaries make
little or no distinction between the various pillars. They want to know which entitlements
they have already acquired and what they can expect when they retire. For mobile
workers, it would be far easier to get this from one location and not have to
laboriously search for their individual entitlements across countries and
pillars.
Cross-border
identification and authentication of users will gradually become possible over
the next few years via the interoperability of eIDs. At the same time, the
Single Digital Gateway will make it necessary to provide access to individual information
online, including state pension schemes. These developments will also
facilitate tracking and information across pillars for mobile workers as part
of the ETS. This will not only benefit the European pension platform but also
national services and pension providers.
About the VBL
The Pension
Institution of the Federal Republic and Länder (VBL) is the largest supplier of supplementary pensions in Germany. For more
than 85 years, employers in the public service have entrusted the VBL with
managing their employee pension schemes. Currently, the VBL pays out monthly
pensions to around 1.3 million retirees. Around 4.4 million people have
compulsory insurance with VBLklassik. In addition to this standard pension, the
VBL offers a supplementary pension based on VBLklassik, called VBLextra. This allows
members to make their own additional contributions and better secure their
standard of living in old age.