IPE: Largest Swedish pension providers call for break from Solvency II

18 April 2016

Four of Sweden’s largest pension providers have urged the Ministry of Finance to regulate the occupational pension sector with a tailor-made framework rather than subject them to Solvency II.

Alecta, AMF, Folksam and Folksam’s local government subsidiary KPA outlined why the government should consider a new standalone regulatory framework, based on the current traffic-light system for assessing the financial stability of providers, rather than impose the insurance regulation on the sector from 2019.

The framework would formalise the traffic-light system used by regulator Finansinspektionen, which includes stress tests for equity, credit, interest rate, real estate and currency risks, while allowing the providers to maintain their current mark-to-market balance sheets, according to one of the signatories.

The industry shows that it is willing to accept risk-based capital requirements. It comes after plans unveiled in 2014 to allow for a standalone occupational pensions vehicle, with tailor-made capital requirements designed by FI, were resisted by the industry, as it was expected they would only be in force for a limited number of years until IORP II capital requirements were introduced.

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