The past two decades have witnessed unparalleled growth in contractual savings (life insurance and private pension funds).  In various countries contractual savings accumulated a large amount of assets that reach more than 100% of GDP and became dominant financial intermediaries.  The growing importance of contractual savings in equity markets and demographic forces, mainly in OECD but also in emerging economies, have increased the pressure on governments to reform their pension system, and to chose effective regulations and policies for the newly created institutions. More recently, the investment climate for pension and insurance companies has seriously deteriorated and both market players and supervisory authorities face the challenge of increasing unfunded pension liabilities and inadequate actuarial assumption of insurance guarantee products. The World Bank is focusing its 2nd Contractual Savings Conference on the supervisory and regulatory challenges that market and supervisory authorities are facing in this new investment climate.

Objectives

One of the key objectives of the conference is to provide a platform for senior government officials, staff in multilateral agencies, academics and market practitioners to discuss the role of contractual savings in developed and developing economies, to study cutting-edge regulatory and supervisory issues of contractual savings institutions in order to identify best practices, as well as to discuss solvency, funding and resolution issues of distressed companies.

Format

The program will be delivered in a conference format where each session is presented by an academic or senior level regulator or supervisor or market practitioner followed by questions and answers. The conference will cover: Accounting and Solvency Regulation, Funding Requirements, Supervisory Frameworks, Company resolutions, Asset Liability management, Behavioral Economics, Financial Education, Consumer Protection, and Governance. 

Target

The target audience includes world wide senior policy makers with direct involvement with pension, life insurance and annuities, and fiscal and financial sector policies.  Also targeted is the staff from the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, Regional Development Banks, and other institutions who are interested in deepening their knowledge on the subject.  Staff from multilateral agencies are encouraged to invite their counterparts from insurance and pensions supervisory agencies, general financial market regulators and supervisors, central banks, ministries of finance and economy and other governmental institutions that can benefit from the program.