Eine kürzlich von McKinsey publizierte Studie über die anscheinend vergleichsweise schlechten Performancewerte der Schweizer Pensionskassen hat einiges Aufsehen erregt. Jetzt ist die Studie verfügbar. Auf der Website schreibt McKinsey dazu:
Switzerland’s relatively robust economic performance since the financial crisis has cushioned the impact of these challenges, but the country’s second- pillar pension system is not immune to the global trends. Between 2008 and 2018, both public and private pension funds were forced to cut technical interest rates by more than 1.5 percentage points and reduce effective average conversion rates from 6.79 percent to 5.87 percent. Consequently, combined replacement rates for first- and second-pillar pensions have dropped by a full 10 percentage points over those 11 years.
Nevertheless, the Swiss second-pillar pension system is better positioned to meet these challenges than many of its foreign counterparts. It is one of the best-capitalized systems in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, ranking fifth in total pension assets relative to GDP in 2018. Some pension experts, such as the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index, caution that, compared to peer economies, Switzerland has lower replacement rates for mandatory pension schemes, higher levels of household debt, and a greater likelihood of retirees experiencing relative income poverty.
However, taking sizable voluntary pension savings, relatively high disposable incomes, and high household wealth into consideration, the OECD recently concluded that “prospects for elderly Swiss are comparatively bright”. That said, Switzerland’s current position of relative strength should not foster complacency among decision-makers or the electorate. The country’s failure to implement reforms and address unfavorable demographic and market trends has caused it to lose ground to globally leading pension markets in recent years. Although new reform proposals for Switzerland’s second-pillar pension system are currently being discussed, there is good reason to doubt they will be enough to sustainably solve the challenges that the system faces.
