The House of Representatives approved the introduction of a new pension system. The House has been discussing the new system for years and has asked thousands of parliamentary questions about it. If the Senate also gives the deal within a few months, the new rules will go into effect in mid-2023. It will be a few years before you know it.
The most important change is that everyone will receive a personal pension fund. The funds now still have a common pot. Also, under the new system, the amount of your pension depends more on how much money you invest during your working life.
It was also agreed that many workers who are not yet accruing a pension will do so under the new system. For example, young people start saving for old age from the age of 18, whereas now this is still from the age of 21. Furthermore, there will be better rules for the self-employed and temporary workers.
That more workers are building a pension is at the request of the opposition parties PvdA and GroenLinks. The Cabinet needs the parties for a majority in the Senate.
Many other opposition parties are critical of the new system because there are still many of them unclear and. For example, it is not yet clear how the total pension fund of a whopping €1.5 trillion is divided among all those millions of personal pension funds.
Nor was it agreed what should happen to the group for which switching to the new system could have a negative effect. This primarily affects people in their forties. They’ve already saved a lot for retirement, but a relatively large portion of that money goes to older groups.
The government has already promised that they will be compensated. But how he will do it is not yet known.
If the plan actually goes into effect in mid-2023, pension funds will have until early 2027 to transition to the new system. It is especially important how they will spread their total assets across millions of small pots and whether they can do it fast enough. Lots of funds fear miss the deadline.
