CODEL MCCONNELL DISCUSSES CHILE'S MIXED SUCCESS

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 000227 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EFIN EINV PGOV CI SUBJECT: CODEL MCCONNELL DISCUSSES CHILE'S MIXED SUCCESS WITH PENSION REFORM ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Chile,s privatized pension administration (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones--AFP) superintendent Guillermo Larrain briefed Codel McConnell on the strengths and weaknesses of Chile,s pension system at a January 13 meeting in Santiago. Chile,s three-pillared pension system, instituted in 1981, now covers a majority of Chile,s workers. Larrain said the creation of the AFP had also served as an enormous catalyst for the development of Chile's capital markets, greatly assisting businesses and consumers in obtaining credit. However, Chile,s pension system faces a key challenge as its system is mandatory but not universal. According to Larrain, this means that up to 25 percent of Chile's workforce -- primarily the sporadically and self-employed -- was outside the AFP. This segment of the population would continue to depend on public sector budget transfers for retirement funding. Larrain said several foreign countries had adopted variants of the Chilean model to reform their own pension systems, with Sweden the most similar in his opinion. End summary. ¶2. (U) Meeting participants: -- U.S.: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY),Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL),Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and Senator John Thune, Ambassador Craig Kelly, Professional Staff members Reb Brownell, Thomas Hawkins and Paul Grove, Military Escort Col. Chris O,Connor, Embassy chief economic officer and Embassy notetaker. -- Chile: Guillermo Larrain, Superintendent AFP, AFP Chief of Staff Manuel Aylwin. Three Pillars -------------- ¶3. (SBU) At a January 13 meeting in Santiago, AFP Superintendent Larrain told Codel McConnell that Chile,s pension system has three pillars: a) Mandatory, set contributions for most workers, held in privately-managed accounts with five portfolio options available; b) Voluntary additional contributions to retirement accounts, which increase benefits at retirement; and c) A minimum safety net for Chile,s poorest seniors, which is financed by the government. Larrain touted the national benefits of Chile,s pension system, such as the huge infusion of capital into Chile,s financial sector through pension fund investments. At the same time, he admitted that Chile,s system remained only partially-implemented after 25 years. He said the AFP currently faces major challenges as it seeks the right balance of reform and incentives that will bring Chile,s marginally or informally employed (20-25 percent of all workers) into the system. First Pillar: Mandatory Savings -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Larrain explained that workers in Chile, except for the self-employed and members of the military, automatically contribute to mandatory individual AFP pension accounts, which are in turn invested in portfolios. Workers choose from among five portfolios, each offering varying levels of investment risk. Workers can choose from six investment companies to manage the portfolio they choose. For the mandatory pension accounts, management companies can only offer the five portfolio options designated by Chilean law. However, under the additional voluntary savings plans there are other investment vehicles offered by the management companies, as well as by banks and insurance companies. ¶5. (SBU) The AFP system, instituted by the Pinochet government in 1981, has served as an enormous catalyst for the development of capital markets since its inception, Larrain noted. The growth of Chile,s financial markets has greatly eased credit for businesses and consumers. Chilean homebuyers can purchase property without a downpayment with a mortgage term as long as 40 years. Pension fund managers, as the largest institutional investors in Chile, are a key contributor to Chile,s economic progress and stability. ¶6. (SBU) Larrain said that financial institutions face legal restrictions on the use of pension funds and percentage caps for investment in any particular sector. He said one of AFP,s main reform objectives was to loosen these regulations. These restrictions had limited further progress in the pension funds, role in underpinning and expanding Chile,s capital markets. Large Informal Employment Sector -------------- ¶7. (U) While the privately-managed funds have an impressive 10 percent annual real return, Chile,s pension system faces a key problem: 20-25 percent of the Chilean workforce is informally employed or only sporadically employed. Larrain explained that AFP studies had shown informally employed workers generally saved little, made no pension contributions and did not pay taxes. For this segment of the workforce, the AFP,s mandatory contribution system could appear like a tax, with informally-employed workers often not understanding the difference between a tax and pension contributions. The fact that Chile,s "mandatory" pension system was still not universal meant a significant segment of the working population would continue to depend on a government safety net, whose financing could be a drag on the economy. ¶8. (U) The short-term economic needs of these lower income workers nearly always trumped retirement savings, Larrain continued. The result was a large percentage of Chile,s population not participating in the country,s pension system at all, thus having no retirement savings, since the AFP accounts are funded by the employee, not the employer or government. The U.S. did not have this problem, he said, as all workers -- even those receiving unemployment compensation -- must pay Social Security. ¶9. (SBU) Larrain said that a large infusion of government money would be needed to bring Chile,s informal workforce into the pension system. Incentives such as government matching contributions would likely be needed to encourage them to fund their own retirement accounts. He said a large-scale cash fix would not be a responsible or effective solution, however, if much of the infusion were to go into the pockets of fund managers rather than workers, pension accounts. In this regard, Larrain explained that private managers often charge fees higher than fees charged by banks. As an alternative to the higher fees, he asserted, the pension system could meet its long-term goals with lower returns than it currently enjoys by shifting pension funds into instruments with minimal management costs, such as savings accounts. Aging Population Also Challenging -------------- ¶10. (U) Larrain noted that Chile,s population was quickly aging, while pension-eligibility ages remained relatively young. While there is no mandatory retirement age, Chilean men become eligible for AFP pensions at 65 and Chilean women at 60. With increasing life expectancies, especially for women, these eligibility ages were leading to longer and longer retirements, in which retirees no longer contributed to pensions but received benefits. At the same time, some Chileans choose to start withdrawing their pensions while still working at the same or a different job, since there is no mandatory retirement age. Chilean labor law expressly forbids termination of employment simply because the employee chooses to start receiving his AFP pension. This put financial strain on the pension system, which AFP was seeking to alleviate through reform proposals that made it less attractive to retire. While raising the minimum pension-eligibility age was a possible solution, Larrain said, a more effective mechanism might be to create a point system that offered incentives for later retirement. Second Pillar: Voluntary Additions -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Larrain said that while the basic pension system relied on mandatory contributions, employees were free to make additional contributions. As pension payments at retirement are directly linked to contributions during an employee's working years, additional voluntary contributions were in employees, interests, he said. Another incentive for contributions above the mandatory level was the possibility of a one-time cash-out at retirement. If an employee's accumulated retirement savings is high enough (normally at least 150 percent of average lifetime pension contributions),the retiree could collect the excess as a lump-sum and use it without restriction. ¶12. (SBU) While the amount of mandatory pension contributions is fixed, Larrain continued, fees and returns on plans could vary significantly as a percentage of a worker's income. Encouraging more voluntary contributions could thus be confusing. Moreover, while competition among funds should lead to lower administrative costs associated with pension management, in reality entrance into this market was difficult and thus competition weak. Larrain said that just as relatively simple options among 401(k) plans in the U.S. were confusing to workers, Chilean workers were often confused by differing price structures and benefit plans offered by private managers for these voluntary, additional retirement contributions. Third Pillar: Minimum Guaranteed Pension -------------- ¶13. (SBU) Larrain bluntly noted that the minimum guaranteed retirement benefit was underfunded and did not meet some seniors, basic income requirements. While Chilean retirees who contributed pension savings throughout their working years usually received at least 50 percent of their former income, efforts to pay out a minimum guaranteed retirement to everyone had been unsuccessful. The minimum guarantee (only available at the legal pension-eligibility age of 65 for men and 60 for women, even if the individual had left the work force before reaching that age) was not sufficient to meet a retiree,s basic living expenses. Even this limited amount had not been paid in full because of inadequate government budgeting to fund the minimum guarantee. Improving the minimum guarantee and payouts to the poorest seniors, he said, was a challenge that the Chilean government and the AFP must overcome. ¶14. (SBU) Given the challenges of currently providing a minimum basic income to Chile,s seniors, Larrain complained of how the variety of private management plans and price schemes confused Chileans, discouraging additional, voluntary contributions. Larrain said that while the AFP was supportive of more investment options, it opposed allowing investment companies to increase the pension funds, liquidity before retirement. Larrain did not support allowing programmed withdrawal of funds by retirees after retirement. While a programmed withdrawal would allow for the flexibility to pass on monies to retirees, heirs, something not possible in an annuity-type system, it also passed the longevity risk on to the retiree as well. Others Look to Chile's Model -------------- ¶15. (U) In discussing the Chilean pension system,s strengths and weaknesses, Larrain noted other nations, experiences with retirement systems similar to Chile,s. He said Mexico, Hungary and Poland had adopted systems influenced by the Chilean model, with varying success. A key difficulty many of these systems faced, especially in Europe, was workers, ability to maneuver between pension systems, making it difficult to ensure relatively constant returns. Also, Larrain noted that lowering pensions was highly unpopular, even if mandated by legitimate economic factors. This further argued for a more stable pension system where workers would not increase the risk of not being able to fund fully their own retirement by transferring between pension plans. Sweden's Pension Reform Seen From Chile -------------- ¶16. (U) The most interesting example, and the best case study for other governments, Larrain offered, was Sweden,s pension reform. Unlike Chile,s pension overhaul, which was introduced under the Pinochet dictatorship and involved a mandatory migration of most of Chile,s workers over to a new system, Sweden,s more gradual reform plan was adopted democratically. The first step in Sweden,s incremental reform from the current &pay-as-you-go8 model was the introduction of capitalization in private accounts, with points rather than monetary amounts as the basis of future pensions. Unlike Chile,s drastic ending of its &pay-as-you-go8 system, Sweden allowed a gradual transition to government-regulated but privately-managed accounts. Additionally, Sweden,s new system included the critical element of linking amounts contributed to amount received at retirement, which Larrain felt was a critical correlation. ¶17. (U) For Larrain, a possible flaw in Sweden,s new system was that employees had too many (nearly 600) different portfolios from which to choose. As most employees had neither the capacity nor the patience to weigh the benefits of 600 portfolios, the variety of choices introduced confusion. Larrain also mentioned that Sweden,s social welfare system and pension benefits, among the most generous in the world, combined with its rapidly aging population, created different challenges than would be faced in retirement savings reform elsewhere. Chile's Pension Reform &Best Practices8 -------------- ¶18. (SBU) Regardless of which model a country followed, Larrain said that successful pension systems shared several key attributes: -- They were simple systems with a clear correlation between the amount of worker contributions and the amount of benefits paid during retirement; -- There was a limited number of portfolio options, with low management fees, all presented in a user-friendly format (Larrain said that President Bush,s portfolio proposal, similar to the USG,s own Thrift Savings Plan for its federal employees, was very good in this regard); -- The systems had default options, perhaps with a risk-return profile that tracked employee age and reduced risk over time; and, -- There existed easy entrance and conversion procedures for both new workers and those seeking to convert their existing social security accounts/pension plans into a capitalized, universal system. ¶19. Codel McConnell did not have an opportunity to clear on this message prior to departure. KELLY