Is it a challenge or an opportunity for the financial industry to serve the elderly? "Aging is the wealth of society"
"Aging is not a burden, but a social asset, and society must be responsible for it," said Zhou Hanmin, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. With the advent of the silver economy, how should the financial industry support the high-quality development of the silver economy? Today, the 2024 Lujiazui Forum Plenary Session 6 discussed the topic of "Silver Economy and Pension Finance", and many professionals from banks, insurance companies and other professional institutions offered suggestions.
Cai Xiliang, Vice Chairman and President of China Life Insurance Company, said that my country's pension industry is currently facing the following challenges:
First, there is an imbalance between the demand and supply of pension services. In terms of demand, my country has established a three-pillar pension security system, but it is not balanced. As of the end of last year, the number of participants in the first pillar of basic pension insurance was 1.07 billion, the number of participants in the second pillar of enterprise annuities and occupational annuities was nearly 76 million, and the third pillar was personal pensions, with more than 49 million accounts opened by the end of last year. In his opinion, the attractiveness and coverage of the second and third pillars need to be improved, and the replacement rate of pensions is low, which leads to insufficient payment ability of the elderly group and difficulty in forming effective demand. In terms of supply, there is a mismatch in the supply of pension facilities. For example, more than two-thirds of nursing homes are in suburbs, but three-quarters of the elderly live in urban areas.
Secondly, home-based elderly care services are not fully developed. In fact, more than 90% of the elderly choose home-based elderly care, but the supply of home-based long-term care, assistance for the disabled, medical assistance and other elderly-friendly services, which are in great demand, is still in short supply. In addition, the level of comprehensive medical and elderly care service guarantees needs to be improved. At present, most elderly care institutions only provide elderly care and not medical care, while medical institutions only treat illnesses and not provide elderly care.
Of course, challenges and opportunities coexist. As Kazuya NAGASAWA, member of MSCI's Executive Management Committee and President of Asia Pacific Business, said, "This is not only a challenge, but also a once-in-a-century innovation opportunity for the financial industry."
Take insurance companies as an example. Zhao Yonggang, executive director and president of China Pacific Insurance Co., Ltd., said that the fund management of insurance institutions has natural cost requirements on the liability side, pays more attention to investment security and stability, pays more attention to refined management and intensive growth, and has certain advantages in participating in pension finance. He summarized the advantages as "three strengths". First, they are good at long-term fund asset allocation and absolute return acquisition. Insurance companies pursue risk and return balance through asset allocation, and consolidate the safety chain through fixed income investment, which is highly consistent with the fund attributes and management ideas of pension funds; second, they are good at serving pension management from both the fund side and the asset side; third, they are good at opening up the entire chain of insurance investment services and providing customers with one-stop insurance investment services.
Gu Shu, Chairman of the Agricultural Bank of China, said that serving the silver economy and elderly care needs is a systematic project that cannot be separated from cross-sector and multi-level cooperation. Commercial banks should actively strengthen in-depth cooperation with human resources and social security, civil affairs, industry and information technology, medical care, data element management and other departments at all levels, widely seek integration and innovation with socialized and professional elderly care service companies, gather the joint efforts of all parties, promote complementary advantages, and work together to meet the general public's yearning for a better life with a place to live and a happy life in old age.
