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In an interview Christian Lemaire, head of retirement solutions at Amundi, claimed the asset manager was the first to offer a pan-European IORP based in Luxembourg.
The current Belgian route for pan-European IORPs is either provided by consultancy Aon Hewitt or organised by the multinational companies themselves.
According to Lemaire, Amundi’s IORP aims to attract defined contribution plans from France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
He said a large cosmetics company, a car manufacturer and an international accountancy firm had outsourced part of their pension arrangements to the Luxembourg vehicle but declined to provide details about the participating firms.
Amundi’s IORP provides both pensions administration and asset management, Lemaire added; Dutch companies that relocate their pension plans to Belgium usually place their administration with a provider in the Netherlands.
Lemaire said Amundi had chosen Luxembourg because of its well-developed financial sector and its supervision, “which is no less strict but more flexible than in other countries”.
He said Amundi’s asset management costs for a DC plan in Luxembourg were 30% lower than in other European countries, and that administration costs were approximately €40 per participant, compared with €100 on average for similar services in the Netherlands.
The contentious issue of cross-border schemes has been rumbling on for years in Europe. In 2003, French pension fund UMR Corem abandoned plans to launch a cross-border scheme after the country’s insurance and pension fund authority allegedly sent a letter to the scheme advising it to drop its IORP plans in Belgium.