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Our productsFrom a board summary to a digital report free of jargon for members — always compared with peer group and universe.
The primary user of the report is the board, which bears ultimate responsibility for policy, implementation and costs. Our report gives the board information not merely to observe costs, but to steer on them at board level. The board is responsible for the coherence between the pension scheme, its implementation, investment policy, service delivery and costs. Ultimately the board must be able to explain to members and other stakeholders why it has made certain policy choices.
Assesses whether the board has costs and implementation properly under control. An important question here is whether the board has sufficient insight into the costs and acts on that insight where necessary.
Under the Wtp it is explicitly laid down in legislation (Amendment 136, Van Beukering and Ceder) that the accountability body gives an opinion on the implementation costs, among other places in the board report. A typical question is: are the costs reasonable given the policy choices made, and are they easy to explain? Why are our costs higher?
View the amendmentAsset allocation and investment policy are important cost drivers and determine approximately 75% of the fund's cost level. A significant part of the level of costs is determined by asset allocation.
Costs, financial control, reporting and the assessment of deviations. Assessing the allocation of general costs is particularly relevant here.
Social partners and stakeholders gain insight into the financial consequences of policy choices. Board offices prepare analyses and board decisions.
Together they form one coherent picture: from the main outline for the board to the explanation for the member.
The board summary contains the key overviews and an analysis of the modules.
The modules contain overviews of the fund compared with peer group and universe, divided across five modules A to E.
View the modulesA digital report free of jargon, developed especially for members — but also for the supervisory board and the accountability body.
Statutory key figures for implementation costs, general costs including governance costs, allocation of general costs to asset management, and the costs of supervision.
Required own funds (VEV), interest rate hedging and currency hedging.
Explanation of the definitions applied and a glossary of terms.
At the request of the AFM (see below), IBI developed a digital report together with Lisa Brüggen, especially for members but also for the supervisory board and the accountability body.
The report is free of jargon and reports the fund's scores — taking account of the pension fund's policy choices — compared with peer group and universe. In view of the Wtp and the resulting cohorts, we have additionally included the costs of equities and fixed income.
The report is explained in person. We are happy to make further arrangements for this, either on site or via Teams. Multiple sessions for different target groups are also possible.
Make an appointment“The AFM invites the pension sector to (continue to) consider ways of providing members with proper information about costs. Discussions with the market show that the annual report is not always considered the most suitable medium for explaining this subject. On the one hand because it is already an extensive document that members read only to a limited extent. On the other hand because the outcomes of a benchmark comparison in the annual report are by definition a year behind. In addition, parties indicate that members quickly experience information as complex. Wanting to inform members properly while at the same time weighing up what members need is a difficult balance. In the period ahead the AFM will seek dialogue with the pension sector on this subject.”
With the new pension system in mind, clear cost communication matters, because the pension benefit is then directly related to the net return. Moreover, costs will have to be allocated per cohort and made transparent for members. As a result, differences in costs will also arise within the pension fund itself.
By being informed correctly and transparently now, members will be better able to assess costs under the new pension system. The Uniform Pension Cost Overview explains why costs differ between pension funds — and, under the new pension contract, per cohort as well. Participants in IBI Benchmarking receive UPKO free of charge.
Eric Veldpaus, director of IBI Benchmarking
“At the beginning of the year, the Institutional Benchmarking Institute (IBI) asked us to help develop a communication model for implementation costs. In April the AFM report followed, which asked funds to explain implementation costs to members somewhere other than in the annual report. That underlined the importance of a clear overview once more.”
“I soon discovered that the subject matter is not at all simple. How can we convey this to members without a lot of jargon and long texts? In short: a fine challenge. Over the past months we set to work and designed new charts together with the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society. I took care of the texts myself.”
“I think it is important that members already understand why the costs of pension funds differ from one another. Under the new pension contract, costs will also differ within a pension fund. Communicating this properly to members now matters. Together with IBI we have succeeded in doing so.”
IBI believes that independent, sound benchmarking should be accessible to large and smaller pension funds alike. We therefore apply a transparent rate structure in which the annual contribution is geared to the size of the pension fund.
To determine the number of members we follow the definition of the Pensioenfederatie. The number of members is the sum of the active members and pension beneficiaries at the end of the reporting year. Deferred members are not included. The total of active members and pension beneficiaries is therefore the basis.
The size of the pension fund determines the contribution, not the substantive quality of the benchmark. Every participating pension fund receives the same reports and benefits from the same independent benchmarking methodology and from a comparison in which costs are not merely compared, but assessed in the context of the pension fund.
All amounts are annual contributions and exclusive of VAT.
The annual contribution covers participation in the IBI benchmark and the board summary, the module report and the Uniform Pension Cost Overview, together with the accompanying analyses.
In doing so, IBI looks beyond the level of costs alone. The benchmark provides insight into the position of the pension fund relative to comparable pension funds and helps to explain differences on the basis of relevant characteristics and policy choices.
This yields insight not only into how high the costs are, but above all into why costs differ and what is delivered in return.
The value of benchmarking increases when developments are followed over several years.
A single reporting year can be influenced by incidental developments. Benchmarking annually according to a consistent methodology creates a multi-year series, which makes it easier to distinguish structural developments from annual fluctuations.
Under the Future Pensions Act (Wtp) this becomes even more relevant. Pension funds want to be able to assess how costs, returns and other relevant characteristics develop, and whether expectations expressed in advance are actually met.
That is why, alongside participation for a single reporting year, IBI also offers the option of a multi-year benchmarking agreement.
For pension funds around the moment of transition (“invaren”), the multi-year comparison can be used as the IBI Transition Mirror. Comparing several years before the transition with the years after it gives insight, at total pension fund level, into the development of costs, returns and relevant explanatory factors.
This enables the pension fund to assess, among other things:
The Transition Mirror is therefore not a separate snapshot, but the step towards structural annual benchmarking.
After the transition, the relevance of benchmarking does not end. Continuing the benchmark annually creates an independent and consistent frame of reference for monitoring, assessing and accounting for the development of the pension fund.
Annual benchmarking thus supports the board in assessing costs and policy choices, and provides relevant information for the accountability and supervisory bodies, internal supervision and the substantiation of the explanation of implementation costs in the reporting.
Not measuring once, but continuing to measure, explain and account for it every year.
Pension funds that wish to use benchmarking structurally can enter into a multi-year benchmarking agreement with IBI.
Separate terms and rates apply to multi-year agreements.
We combine the annual benchmark with additional services, such as:
Our report contains information that can be used in the board report as part of the annual report. We advise against including the explanation of costs in a separate section headed “implementation costs”.
It is better to include the explanation of asset management costs under “investments” and the pension administration costs under “pension”. In this way it can be made clear that a large part of the cost level is related to the board's policy choices.
The link alongside leads to an example of such an explanation.
A worked example of how the benchmark outcomes can be included in the board report, in relation to return, service and complexity. Available in Dutch.
View the exampleThese 79 funds represent the pensions of 14.1 million members in the Netherlands.
IBI has produced an extensive position paper explaining the added value of IBI Benchmarking: “From cost level to cost understanding: the role of benchmarking”. Using this document, together with the summary, you can put participation in IBI Benchmarking on the agenda within your fund. Both documents are available in Dutch. The product note will follow.
The full substantiation of the added value of thorough benchmarking.
Download PDFA concise summary to put participation in IBI Benchmarking on the agenda.
Download PDFAn overview of the products and the associated terms of delivery.
To followWe are happy to explain our benchmarking in more detail — on site (our preference) or via Teams. We are also glad to discuss any special wishes or requests, such as additional presentations.
