Early retirements fuel pension system woes

The Swiss state pension system paid out CHF579 million ($600 million) more than it took in last year. A poor investment performance resulted in an overall loss of CHF559 million. The situation is not helped by a trend towards early retirement in large companies.  The previous year, 2014, also saw greater costs than revenues, but the better investment performance meant a total loss was avoided.  Compenswiss, the Swiss Federal Social Security Funds, blamed unfavourable market conditions. The scrapping of a franc-euro exchange rate ceiling by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on January 15, 2015, had a negative effect, it said, with a lot of money being spent on currency hedging.  In addition, Compenswiss said the SNB’s policy of negative interest rates was also expensive.  Around three-quarters of pension contributions are made by employers and employees – the rest comes from the state. But, as Swiss public television, SRF, reported on Tuesday, early retirement is no ...