Against the grain

"When your scheme members are the people working at the forefront of the country's financial industry, obviously that's going to create a bit of pressure on you to perform," says Rainer Jakubowski, chief financial officer of Germany's biggest private pension provider, the Berlin-based BVV Versicherungsverein.

Formed in 1909 by a group of German private banks to manage retirement provisions for the industry's growing employee base, the fund today manages the pensions of 95% of the German priva