The statutory Minimum Funding Requirement (MFR) introduces fundamental change to the funding of pension schemes in the United Kingdom. While only a minority of schemes will actually be affected materially in terms of actual contributions or benefits, taken over a period of years, the influence of MFR will be much more widely felt. This is because the MFR is an absolute standard to be met, whereas long-term funding targets for ongoing schemes are, at least up to a point, optional and adjustable. The paper discusses the difference between MFR and long-term funding and suggests a variation on traditional actuarial methods to control explicitly the risk of MFR failure, based on a combination of traditional methods and the theories underlying asset/liability modelling. The paper also discusses the implications for pension expensing and communication of funding levels.

Increasingly, modern business and investment management techniques are founded on approaches to measurement of profit and risk developed by financial economists. This paper begins by analysing corporate pension provision from the perspective of such financial theory. The results of this analysis are then reconciled with the sometimes contradictory messages from traditional actuarial valuation approaches and the alternative market-based valuation paradigm is introduced. The paper then proposes a successful blueprint for this mark-to-market valuation discipline and considers whether and how it can be applied to pension schemes both in theory and in practice. It is asserted that adoption of this market based approach appears now to be essential in many of the most critical areas of actuarial advice in the field of defined benefit corporate pension provision and that the principles can in addition be used to establish more efficient and transparent methodologies in areas which have traditionally relied on subjective or arbitrary methods. We extend the hope that the insights gained from financial theory can be used to level the playing field between defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements from both corporate and member perspectives.

This Working Party has considered the pensions implications of a prolonged period of low inflation. Experience in the United States of America suggests weaker correlation between equity and bond returns and greater overall volatility of returns. Without a further significant increase in the valuation of equities relative to their underlying economic activity, the cost of pensions will rise, possibly as much as doubling within the next 15 years. It follows that for defined contribution schemes and personal pensions, current contribution levels are likely to produce disappointing and generally inadequate results. Similarly, the costs of defined benefit promises will increase. Future defined benefit provision is also vulnerable to the mismatch of mainly equity assets with mainly fixed liabilities and is therefore difficult to control. Many practical issues of scheme design still reflect past inflation and need to be addressed.

Presidential Addresses are an opportunity to survey the actuarial landscape, and this one is no exception. The pace of change and scope of work undertaken by actuaries since the President qualified is commented upon. Many of the current and future issues are also aired, from bonus rates and pensions mis-selling to stakeholder pensions and long-term care. Regulation, in a number of areas, is also reviewed. The regular topics of education, examinations and continuous professional development also feature.