{"id":251697,"date":"2023-07-11T20:46:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T15:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=251697"},"modified":"2023-08-31T13:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T07:31:12","slug":"improving-pensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/improving-pensions\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Pensions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cImproving Pensions\u201d <\/strong>published in the <strong>\u201cBusiness Standard\u201d <\/strong>on <strong>11th July 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3-Economy<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance:<\/strong> Issues related to financial system<\/p>\n<p><strong>News-<\/strong>. The article explains the issues related to pension funds in India.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the issues related to pension funds in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Return on investment<\/strong>&#8211; The majority of the funds are composed of<strong> investment returns<\/strong>. But, l<strong>ong-term real returns<\/strong> on debt instruments are relatively low.<\/p>\n<p>There are two primary reasons for this. Firstly, banks in India are required to maintain a <strong>statutory liquidity ratio.<\/strong> As a result, the demand for these bonds is high. It drives up their prices and consequently <strong>lowering yields.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Secondly, in order to stimulate economic growth, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintains a <strong>low real repo rate<\/strong>. This has an impact on overall <strong>returns on investment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Risk on investment<\/strong>&#8211; Investment returns also come with <strong>certain risks<\/strong>.<strong> Inflation risk<\/strong> is the first one. It can diminish the<strong> real value of the corpus<\/strong> held by pension funds. The second risk is <strong>interest rate risk<\/strong>. It can cause<strong> significant fluctuations<\/strong> in <strong>bond and equity prices<\/strong>, affecting pension funds.<\/p>\n<p>Another risk is the potential change in <strong>market sentiment<\/strong>. Both <strong>equity and bond prices<\/strong> can fluctuate for prolonged periods. This poses risks to pension funds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dependence on authorities<\/strong>&#8211; The risks associated with investments depend on the <strong>actions of public authorities<\/strong>. Asset markets do not operate independently.<\/p>\n<p>They function within a <strong>macroeconomic policy and regulatory framework.<\/strong> If these policies and regulations are not appropriate, investment risks can be very high.<\/p>\n<p>Suitable changes in <strong>policy and regulations<\/strong> can help <strong>mitigate risks <\/strong>and improve the <strong>gains for pension funds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the <strong>repo rate<\/strong> is a <strong>key policy tool <\/strong>used by the RBI to maintain <strong>macroeconomic stability. <\/strong>This rate undergoes significant changes over an economic cycle.<\/p>\n<p>It affects interest rates in the broader economy. However, there is often an <strong>overreaction in asset markets<\/strong>, posing risks to pension funds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Regulatory framework<\/strong>&#8211; There are also concerns related to the <strong>regulatory framework governing investments<\/strong>. One key issue is the <strong>absence of regulations <\/strong>addressing the <strong>pervasive role of market sentiment.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cImproving Pensions\u201d published in the \u201cBusiness Standard\u201d on 11th July 2023. Syllabus: GS3-Economy Relevance: Issues related to financial system News-. The article explains the issues related to pension funds in India. What are the issues related to pension funds in India? Return on investment&#8211; The majority of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/improving-pensions\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Improving Pensions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[10503,216,8184],"class_list":["post-251697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-business-standard","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-economy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700807198,"cached_date":1704928499},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}