Mature pension funds will not survive another financial crisis

The recent financial crisis has wiped billions of dollars off the value of pension schemes, but the long-term outlook for these funds is linked closely to their maturity. This is because a major financial crisis is much less harmful to a young pension system than a minor crisis is to a pension system already in the payout phase.

In the past decade, pension funds have learned to their cost that contributions are no longer a valid control instrument while in the future they will find out that stru