Employee Benefits

GERMANY - Chancellor Gerhard Schroder had no alternative in ordering Germany's first post-war pensions freeze, according to industry experts.

UK - A tailored online administration platform is being launched by Aegon UK to help IFAs seize business in the burgeoning flexible benefits market.

NETHERLANDS - PGGM, the e48bn scheme for health and social workers, has fired a scathing attack on the Dutch government, claiming that up to 30,000 of its members could be "seriously disadvantaged" if plans to tax early retirement go ahead.

UK - Gartmore Investment Management's flexible benefits package, Gartmore Plus, was introduced last year in a bid to tailor employee benefits more closely to what staff wanted.

SCOTLAND- Mercer Human Resource Consulting is to show Scottish employers how to move from defined benefit to defined contribution pension provision.

HUNGARY - Hungarian pension funds achieved up to nine times the real return rate in 2002 compared with previous year, according to preliminary data from Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

UK - Employers are turning to flexible benefit plans to manage their spiralling pension costs and help retain final salary schemes, Mercer Human Resource Consulting claims.

UK - Two-thirds of all employees do not understand the pension schemes being offered by their employers, research from Black Mountain reveals.

UK - Thomson's Group chief executive Douglas Gardner has been appointed a member of the FSA's financial services practitioner panel.

UK - Firms' pension costs could be slashed by the government's moves to end age discrimination in the workplace, consultants claim.