[Sponsored Report] Preparing for retirement with ING

Officials of ING Life consult on the company’s retirement pension plan review. Provided by the company

It has been six years since the retirement pension system was introduced to Korea and according to Financial Supervisory Service statistical data pension service sales as July 2011 the amount of the pension reserve is 37.1 trillion won ($31 billion) with 114,295 companies adopting the scheme.

Since 2008 the average growth rate of the pension fund has been around 200 percent, however, it is necessary in the long-term to exert efforts to strengthen operational services after implementation. This is the best way for the pension to function properly as a financial source in later years, which is the way it is in advanced countries.

According to the “Retirement pension subscription and awareness survey,” published by the Korea Insurance Research Institute, approximately 59.7 percent of the participating companies complain about the corporate pension after implementation because of insufficient after service care.

It is necessary to provide continuous education and advice for participants so they can understand the complex corporate pension easily and manage their assets to ensure a stable retirement income. With over 40 years of experience, ING Group has secured around 440 retirement pension groups. Based on the diverse experiences of the ING Group in advanced countries, ING Life Insurance is confident in its excellent service levels.

ING Life is the sole Korean provider of a plan manager service. A plan manager is a single point of contact to support administrative work and communication. Once a plan manager is designated, participants can contact them whenever they need help. Since the plan manager has full knowledge of the products as well as a systematic and efficient management style, a high level of support is possible. Due to these advantages, the system is highly favored by HR officers and staff in charge of retirement pensions. In addition, plan managers, together with retirement pension experts, provide a variety of value-added services including HR advice, labor affairs, pension actuary, tax and accounting.

Moreover, ING Life Korea provides annual plan review reports to examine the status of the plans as well as rebalancing asset allocation services and participant education sessions to ensure successful corporate pension implementation management.

Besides English consulting and reports, ING Life Korea also provides an English Web site, a cyber center and product material for multinational companies in Korea.

Parth Sharma, ING Life Korea executive director of retirement services, explained: “I believe that operational service is a key factor in encouraging global enterprises such as BMW, Macquarie, Deloitte, Siemens and Fuji Xerox to become our sponsors of corporate pensions.

“By making the best of our strengths as a global insurance company, we will continuously provide a variety of services for long-term asset management and consulting systems like 1:1 retirement planning to foreign companies,” he added.

By Lee Ji-hyun [concordia@joongang.co.kr]