PARIS - Assets in retirement savings plans continued to grow in 2020 despite the shock of COVID-19, exceeding USD 56 trillion worldwide at year end and amounting to an 11% increase over 2019 figures.

This growth was supported by an increase in the number of people participating in a retirement savings plan, an increase in the overall contributions into these plans and positive investment returns in many countries.

A special feature looks into public pension reserve funds, providing an overview of their features and highlighting some of the commonalities and differences with providers of retirement savings plans.

About Pension Markets in Focus

Recent years have witnessed intense pension reform efforts in countries around the globe, often involving an increased use of funded pension programmes managed by the private sector. These funded arrangements are likely to play an increasingly important role in delivering retirement income in many countries and privately managed pension assets will play an increasing role in financial markets, notably as a source of long-term savings.

This annual report, published each November, gives an overview of private pension systems worldwide and outlines latest developments in 92 jurisdictions. It assesses the amount of assets in funded and private pension plans, describes the way these assets are invested in financial markets, and looks at how investments have performed, both in the past year and over the past decade. It provides accurate, comprehensive, comparable and up-to-date statistics to help policy makers, regulators and market participants measure, compare and evaluate programme developments and country experiences globally.

To download the full report, visit: https://www.oecd.org/daf/fin/private-pensions/Pension-Markets-in-Focus-2021.pdf