International Pension Research Association (IPRA) Webinar:
From Pillars to Pagodas: Future-proofing Pension Systems
Speaker: Fiona Stewart (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank Group)
Date: 18 September 2024, 9.00-10.00 PM AEST, 6.00-7.00 PM ICT (for further time zones, please click here)
>Click here to register for the webinar<
Abstract: Pension systems around the world faced a ‘stress test’ during the pandemic. On the one hand, there was pressure to allow access to pension savings as emergency support during a sharp economic downturn. On the other hand, the long-term, domestic capital that our pension savings represent was used to support short-term emergency measures, such as purchasing COVID-bonds. And these funds are needed to support longer-term structural imperatives such as the transition to a low-carbon economy. The pandemic also amplified and laid bare trends in the global labour force, which in turn reflect on-going demographic changes to which our traditional pension systems have been struggling to adapt. Our pension systems will need to be structured more like flexible pagodas that adapt to shifting circumstances.
Fiona Stewart, Lead Financial Sector Specialist, joined the Long-term Finance Team in the World Bank's Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice in 2012. Fiona provides policy advice on pension and insurance market reform to governments and regulators around the world. She also helps coordinate the Bank’s work on sustainable finance, including representing the institution at the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, Co-Chairing the Finance Taskforce under the UN Decade on Restoration and acting as Secretary to the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Change. From 2004, Fiona worked for the OECD’s Financial Affairs Division and led the Secretariat of the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors (IOPS). Prior to the OECD, Fiona worked in the pension fund industry, including as Head of American Express Asset Management in Japan. She served on the advisory board of one the OECD’s pension funds and represents the World Bank staff on the organization’s Pension Fund Committee. She holds degrees from Oxford and Johns Hopkins Universities and a Chartered Financial Analyst qualification.