Netherlands pensionland

On October 5, together with Netspar, TILEC organised a meeting on the future of Dutch pension funds in a European context. Directive 2003/41/EC creates the possibility of pan-European pension funds and countries like Ireland and Luxemburg are actively trying to attract these funds. At the same time, Dutch pension funds seem to be in a good starting position to take advantage of the opening up of the market; after all they manage Euro 35.000 for every Dutch citizen. Yet, there are also expansion barriers and limits to competition: employees and firms don't have freedom of choice; pension funds have exclusive rights, but are restricted to a specific sector and face line of business restrictions. Experiences in other countries (UK, Sweden) show that reforming the sector should be carefully thought through. The October 5 meeting made an inventory of the various issues, with emphasis on unbundling and good governance. The liberalisation of the pension sector links the two research lines of TILEC (competition policy and financial markets) and will be an important theme in our future research, to be pursued in cooperation with Netspar.