Three of the most commonly used words right now are probably: “unprecedented,” “disruptive” and “extraordinary.”
An example of how these words are playing out in everyday life is the fact that Australians withdrew over $1.3 billion of superannuation in the first week of the new early release rules to help those suffering financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 107 funds made early release payments.
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Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, asset managers have done an excellent job of adjusting their service and communication response—in both strategy and execution—even if some scrambling has been involved.
In speaking with executives, following press coverage and observing third party communications, we have spent significant time thinking about our clients working through “digital transformations.” Although this pandemic brings more pressure, the timing enables firms to strategize and tactically plan their digital transformations.
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As economies around the world begin to switch back on, it’s time for pension funds to shift focus from short-term cash commitments to seizing the longer term, inflation-hedged infrastructure opportunities.
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Investment performance teams require a comprehensive and highly customizable performance and attribution solution to provide informed analysis to their investment managers. Right now, investment analysts are poring over recent market activity and comparing the results to ex-ante (forecast) risk models employed to predict likely outcomes during extreme events. To conduct this analysis, accurate, detailed and meaningful ex-post (actual) performance and risk results are critical.
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Since the passage of “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act” or “CARES Act” the Retirement Industry has anxiously awaited guidance on a number of open questions. During that time, regulators have issued additional relief measures designed to ease the burden on employers and their plan participants. For example, the IRS issued Notice 2020-23 on April 9, which extended many tax deadlines, including those deadlines applicable to qualified retirement plans.
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Recently, the Treasury Department and IRS extended several deadlines, including the federal income tax filing due date, which was extended to July 15th. Employers are allowed a deferral of the employee portion of Social Security tax from the end of March through December 31st, 2020. The Medicare portion is unchanged. Participation in the Payroll Protection Program may affect eligibility for certain relief measures.
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Institutions invested in a broad range of corporate debt instruments can draw various business benefits from adopting an integrated market and credit risk view. The low-yield environment in major government bond markets (see Fig.1), combined with recent spread volatility increases, reinforce these aspects. For risk analysts, asset allocation experts, and fund managers, it means capturing in a single framework obligors’ rating migration and default situations, on top of yield curve shifts and spread-widening impacts. This integration should allow business stakeholders to blend risk factor and financial instrument info, build timely hedging strategies at the issuer level, or refine their portfolio overlays.
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Given current conditions, many organizations are facing new or amplified challenges with operating efficiently. COVID-19 has forced businesses to work remotely, and they have now found themselves struggling to keep up with resourcing, internal communication and automation. In the early stages of the pandemic, clients had experienced significant spikes in trade volumes, collateral calls and wires activity that posed operational challenges.
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