ACPM publishes White Paper: "Decumulation 2.0: Converting Retirement Savings to Lifetime Income ? A Prescription to Help Canadians Navigate their Retirement Income Needs"

Financial security for seniors has important implications from a social and public policy perspective and ACPM proposes a series of actions to help ensure financial wellness after retirement.

TORONTO, Nov. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the 2017 ACPM Decumulation white paper, additional work has been carried out to determine what remains to be tackled in order to provide Canadian retirees with a comprehensive toolset ? a complete solution they can personalize to create financial security in their retirement. To that end, ACPM has released a new white paper: Decumulation 2.0: Converting Retirement Savings to Lifetime Income ? A Prescription to Help Canadians Navigate their Retirement Income Needs.

ACPM has identified actions to significantly move the needle on securing financial wellness for retirees, including:

1. Create a Dashboard Providing Clear and Complete Picture of All Individual Retirement Income Sources: Canadians are currently not able to see all their available sources of retirement income and the estimated aggregate income from all those sources ? government benefits, employment-based pensions and retirement income and individual savings. ACPM recommends that a Canadian retirement dashboard be created utilizing individual retirement information available through the Federal government and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
2. Provide Regulatory Guidance on Computer-Based Retirement Income Modeling Tools for CAP (capital accumulation plan) Members: ACPM recommends that Canada's pension regulators provide industry guidance that directs CAP sponsors and providers to make available to their members modelling tools with certain best practice attributes to assist them with managing CAP decumulation and allow for CAP members to develop retirement income investment plans with investment strategies for each portion of the member's stream of income and their risk tolerance.
3. Provide Canadians Access to Unbiased Advice: ACPM recommends that all jurisdictions in Canada implement legislation that defines regulated areas of practice and titles for professionals working in retirement and financial planning, as well as transparency on compensation.
4. Make Legislative Changes to Simplify the Decumulation Phase and Enable Effective Decumulation Solutions: Permit Defined Contribution pension plan retirees to elect a common set of pension standards rules to apply to all their DC pension plan account assets; relax certain unlocking rules and permit pension income splitting on retirement income received prior to age 65 from DC and certain other plans.
5. Provide Regulatory Guidance on Duties Relating to Offering Decumulation Options: ACPM recommends that industry decumulation regulatory guidelines be developed to clarify how CAP plan sponsors and administrators can manage duties associated with offering group decumulation options (e.g., VB, Group LIF/RRIF, VPLA).
6. Resuscitate the PRPP as an Effective Decumulation Vehicle: ACPM recommends legislative changes be made to PRPP legislation to eliminate the requirement for employer participation, allow for the possibility of decumulation-only PRPPs, and reduce the administrative burden and costs associated with PRPPs.

Creating current and future generations of financially secure and independent retirees is an important Canadian policy objective. ACPM believes fulfilling the calls to action presented here will significantly assist in achieving that objective and looks forward to working with all interested stakeholders to advance these recommendations to continue to build and improve the Canadian retirement income system.

ACPM (The Association of Canadian Pension Management) is the leading advocacy organization for a balanced, effective and sustainable retirement income system in Canada and our membership manages retirement plans for millions of plan members.

For further information or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Lorianne Weston, Manager of Advocacy and Communications, ACPM;

[email protected] | 416-964-1260 x225 | www.acpm.com