global-pension-transparency-benchmark.top1000funds.comGlobal Pension Transparency Benchmark

| Subscribe Log in Asset Allocation Asset Owner Directory CIO Sentiment Survey Events Events calendar Fiduciary Investors Symposium Sustainability in Practice Podcasts Investor Profile Risk Sustainability Invest with Purpose Subscribe Login Twitter LinkedIn Countries 2021 2022 2023 Funds 2022 2023 Factors 2021 2022 2023 Insights Methodology 2021 2022 2023 2024 Meet the team Promoting transparency for better pension outcomes Why Transparency Matters The is a world first global standard for pension disclosure, bringing a focus to transparency in a bid to improve pension outcomes for members. The GPTB ranks 15 countries on public disclosures of key value-generation elements for the five largest pension fund organisations within each country. The GPTB focuses on the transparency and quality of public disclosures with quality relating to the completeness, clarity, information value and comparability of disclosures. The overall country and fund scores look at four factors: governance and organisation; performance; costs; and responsible investing , which are measured by assessing hundreds of underlying components. Countries Analysed Funds Reviewed Questions Asked Data Points Analysed There is plenty of evidence that a lack of transparency has negative consequences for relationships and organisations of all types, whether they be individuals, governments, corporations, or pension funds. Being transparent is the right thing to do, but there are many benefits beyond this simple moral imperative: Transparency and accountability go hand in hand and lead to improved decision making Improved relationships and interactions across a broad spectrum of stakeholders including beneficiaries, plan sponsors, regulators, suppliers and concerned citizens Ultimately, better outcomes through clarity of purpose, sound goals and accountability for progress This new benchmark reframes the transparency narrative from a narrow and negative focus on costs to a more holistic and positive concept of transparency and includes governance and strategy, value generation and sustainability. Top1000funds.com and CEM Benchmarking have long had aligned goals – to highlight industry best practice and drive better pension outcomes globally. The development of this benchmark is in line with those goals. Understand the methodology A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” Dalai Lama Select the year below to review the results from the current and previous GPTB projects. You can also hover over countries, factors and methodology on the navigation bar to see the full results from the previous year. 2023 2022 2021 Overall Findings 2023 The third edition of the reveals that increased scrutiny on public disclosures is driving measurable improvements. More than three-quarters (77%) of the reviewed organisations improved their total transparency scores. The average fund scored 60 out of 100, an improvement of five points relative to the last edition of the transparency benchmark. Four of the five transparency leaders increased their transparency the most: some have publicly declared their intent to be the most transparent pension organisations in the world. It is great that the is driving organisations globally to improve their transparency. Canadian funds finished first among the countries reviewed, with all five Canadian funds finishing within the top 10 funds globally. The Dutch funds also deserve an honourable mention. Collectively, they provided the best disclosures on cost and responsible investing. CPP Investments topped the list of the most transparent funds in the last two editions of this benchmark. This year, they were narrowly beat out by the Government Pension Fund Global of Norway, and now form a competitive top three with the first three funds separated by only one point each. Australian Super rounds out the top three. In the last edition of the benchmark, transparency scores for individual funds were published for the first time. This created more discussion. This year, we wanted to provide funds with more transparency on the review process. The process itself continues to improve as the benchmark matures. This year, additional governance was introduced, highlighted by a new appeals process for funds to dispute results. Some of the improvements in this year’s transparency scores are driven by better processes and governance. Most of the improvements are driven by better disclosures. While performance reporting at the fund level is generally well done, asset class level disclosures continue to disappoint. More funds are quantifying their progress and goals around carbon footprint and other areas of responsible investing . Stand alone reports on responsible investing are becoming more common, enabling funds to tell a cohesive story. Cost disclosures continue to vary considerably by country and show a strong correlation to domestic disclosure standards. Top1000funds.com coverage of the Overall Findings 2022 This second iteration of the continues to reveal the need for improvement in pension transparency across the globe. Given the slow evolutionary nature of the pension industry in general, this is not an entirely surprising result. It was heartening to see that progress is being made in some areas, particularly in respect to responsible investing, but also in governance disclosures. The improvements seen in disclosures around responsible investing mean that this factor is no longer the lowest scoring factor. Improvements in governance disclosures mean that factor is now the highest scoring factor overall, followed by performance (the highest scoring factor in last year’s review), with cost being the lowest scoring factor. For responsible investing, the improvements were most common among funds who were disclosing some, but not a lot of information last year. While some top scoring funds did improve on the margins, it was those funds in the middle of the rankings that showed the biggest improvement. Lamentably there was no improvement among the lowest scoring funds, 21 of which still received a score of 20 or below. Governance scores reflected an increase in funds disclosing information about their operations as a whole, disclosing important corporate information beyond their core mission of managing assets. There was more discussion of enterprise-wide initiatives and goals, as well as increased discussion on internal compensation philosophies and diversity programs. These two areas of improvement were often related. It seems that as pension organisations disclose more on how they steward portfolio companies, they are becoming aware that information of importance to them in this regard could similarly be of importance to their own stakeholders in relation to the fund itself. While performance reporting at the fund level is generally well done, asset class level disclosures continue to disappoint. More funds are quantifying their progress and goals around carbon footprint and other areas of responsible investing . Stand alone reports on responsible investing are becoming more common, enabling funds to tell a cohesive story. Cost disclosures continue to vary considerably by country and show a strong correlation to domestic disclosure standards. Top1000funds.com coverage of the Overall Findings 2021 The has revealed the need for serious improvement in pension transparency across the globe. Overall the transparency of disclosure varies greatly, both between countries and between funds, across factors that were measured. In some instances there are wild variances between the best and worst performers. While some countries and funds scored well on certain factors, on average transparency of disclosure needs improvement. Overall pension funds around the world scored best on performance disclosure, followed by governance, cost and responsible investment. But the average scores were low, with only the performance factor score demonstrating above average...