Pension reforms, risk transfer and housing finance innovations

Abstract

Weak housing creditor protection, accentuated by weak landed property rights and underdeveloped credit information systems constitute major constraints to housing finance development in many developing countries. Improving housing creditor protection require further institutional development and financial innovation. As a trigger of financial innovation, regulation has spawned pension reforms leading to the global shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension schemes, which has created new opportunities to improve housing creditor protection and thus engender housing finance innovations. This paper considers how pension assets-accumulated benefits and associated personal, employment and contribution information-has provided a basis for collateralized lending and an additional avenue for credit information system development. The paper proposes a pension asset-backed creditor protection model that utilizes defined contribution pension assets to improve housing credit allocation, and thus, housing finance development. Pension assets represent alternative or complementary collateral assets for securing a housing credit (mortgage). And as depositories of information, the information content of pension assets and institutions could also be used alternatively and complementarily to assess the capacity, character and contribution (equity) of potential borrowers in the credit underwriting process. Future applied research may consider how the proposed model could be integrated in existing credit underwriting systems and the operational challenges that could emerge.

Corporate Governance and Performance of Pension Funds in Ghana: A Mixed-Method Study

“…This scheme was revoked, and the Social Security and National Insurance Act (SSNIT) was established under NRCD 127. In 1991, the Social Security Act was enacted, and the scheme was turned into a defined contribution scheme (Donkor-Hyiaman et al 2019). However, some workers such as the Armed Forces, Police and Prison Service were exempted from joining the scheme.…”

“…The first node in Figure 1 exhibits the managers of pension funds with the regulators from the National Pensions and Regulatory Authority (NPRA), which is a body that supervises pension fund management in Ghana. The National Pension Act 2008 (Act 766) established the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) as the sole supervisor (regulator) of pension fund activities in Ghana (Donkor-Hyiaman et al 2019). The NPRA monitors the operations of all pensions in the country by demanding regular reports from the pension fund managers (Anku-Tsede 2019).…”

“…supervisor (regulator) of pension fund activities in Ghana (Donkor-Hyiaman et al 2019). The NPRA monitors the operations of all pensions in the country by demanding regular reports from the pension fund managers (Anku-Tsede 2019).…”

“…Numerous factors have been identified as accounting for this phenomenon, which include including an aging population, income disparities, mismanagement of pension funds, political interference, and low investment returns (Anku-Tsede 2019). A national pension reform was kick-started from 2004 to 2009, and the outcomes of the reforms was the Pension Act 766 in 2010 that received an amendment in 2014, Act 883 (Donkor-Hyiaman et al 2019). Ghana's pension scheme is a three-tier pension scheme.…”

Stakeholder management in the alleviation of legal and regulatory disputes in public-private partnership projects in South Africa

“…As a viable solution to a notable dearth of affordable finance to augment existing, and build new infrastructure assets (cf. Owusu-Manu et al, 2018;Donkor-Hyiaman et al, 2019;Owusu-Manu et al, 2020b, 2020c, state agencies have resorted to collaborating with private firms (Mouraviev and Kakabadse, 2015;Wang, 2015). Klijn (2010) and Ullah et al (2016) affirm that publicprivate partnerships (PPPs) are long-term collaborations between government agencies and private firms.…”