The following are active research working parties overseen by the IFoA’s Finance and Investment Board.
All members are encouraged to volunteer for a research working party. If you have your own ideas for member-led research you would like to pursue, please contact our Practice Communities Team below or refer to our Guidance for Research Working Parties (562 KB PDF).
Members interested in volunteering for a research working party should check our volunteer vacancies.
Defined Benefit schemes that are less than 10 years from buyout face growing pressure to significantly de-risk the investment strategy, increasing the time to buyout or self sufficiency. Recent improvements in funding levels have brought forward many schemes’ journey plans –industry-wide de-risking could cause a concentration of demand in certain assets, potentially increasing the time to settle liabilities still further. Further, the various workstreams required to wind up a scheme can take several years to complete and this can cause buyout (or other settlement) to slip away before a scheme is ready to transact.
Capital Backed Journey Plans are one potential tool to mitigate these three issues. An external capital buffer enables some form of investment guarantee to be made that enables a more defined (and earlier) time to settlement, allowing other workstreams to proceed with confidence. If designed well, such a structure could improve scheme member and trustee outcomes (security of accrued rights), sponsor objectives (lower balance sheet risk and cost). While there are several potential providers offering CBJPs, it remains a new investment product with only one transaction in the public domain at present.
Given the significance of the benefits the strategy targets, further research and public understanding is needed.
Chair: Derek Steeden
Established: 2022
Deliver high-quality research on a wide range of cutting-edge topics regarding the CDI strategy to benefit all the like-minded qualified investment actuaries or students.
The working party will report findings to the appropriate IFoA committees who may use this information to support discussions with regulators and other government bodies, as well as make findings available to the wider actuarial community via presentations at IFoA events.
Chair: Kedi Huang
Membership: 5
Established: 2019
The Cashless Society Working Party (CSWP) was formed in late 2016 with a number of volunteers. Its research delivers a neutral, analytical assessment of developments to comprehend the benefits, risks, and issues of a cashless society at a global level, in the public interest. It provides insights into specialist economic topics and identifies opportunities to learn from international experiences and to adapt public policy. It also provides insights into stakeholder interests that underpin entrenched positions on the transition in progress.
Its first paper “A Cashless Society: Benefits, Risks, and Issues” (referred to as the “Interim paper”) formed the basis for a broader body of work on a number of topics and supported contributions towards several public consultations throughout 2018. “A Cashless Society in 2018” continued Its global chronicle and presented the 2018 trends for the topic, followed by a paper discussing the rise of QR codes for payments, a key 2018 trend.
The CSWP started to take interest in the specialist topics of Central Bank Digital Currencies and crypto assets with a first article in The Actuary magazine in December 2018. This set the scene for a focus in these areas throughout 2019, with a specialist paper on the adoption of digital currencies by the life and pension industries. At the end of the first quarter, the paper “Understanding Central Bank Digital Currencies” seemed ominous of tumultuous events to follow in 2019. A later article about the potential of crypto-assets for capital markets invited readers to think beyond payments.
Financial inclusion was the second area of focus for the CSWP in 2019. Starting with anecdotal evidence from Africa, the CSWP looked to draw lessons from developing regions for the potential benefit of countries such as the UK where de-cashing has been accelerating, with insidious effects on vulnerable residents. The CSWP has engaged with several events, written to stakeholders, and published articles proposing a set of actions to manage the transition towards a less-cash society.
Chair: Ian Collier
Membership: 3
Established: 2016
The working party will provide insight and research on digital assets (including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and non-fungible tokens) to benefit investment actuaries and students.
Chair: Professor Ghulam Sorwar
Established: 2022
There is a lack of knowledge which many financial institutions have about infrastructure investment. This working party will undertake research to uncover information about the risks and rewards which investing institutions are likely to experience
Many financial institutions still believe that they do not know enough about infrastructure investment. The working party undertakes research to uncover information about the risks and rewards that investors are likely to experience.
The working party since its inception has collaborated with the policy team on its policy work on Infrastructure.
Chair: Chris Lewin
Members: 12
Established: 2014
The purpose of this working party is to review and rating of all existing alternative methodologies for the calculation of IE01 of LPI pension scheme benefits. The research will determine the methodology to be used going forward whether it is an existing or totally new methodology.
Chair: Alexandra Miles
Established: 2018
Members: 24
There have been two successful working parties exploring the development of the private credit market covered under the Life Insurance and Finance & Investment Boards:
The key outputs of these working parties were:
Investment in private credit continues to increase across the insurance market and within pension schemes. As such, this working party is expected to pick up where these working parties left off and fill in some of the gaps.
For further information, please see the terms of reference (24 KB Word doc).
The working party has established two sub-groups: one covering managing the assets through a workout, the other one focusing on sub-IG assets, which were not research previously. The working party will also provide its thoughts on CP23/19, as it specifically targets illiquid credit assets.
Chair: Wojciech Herchel
Members: 9
Established: 2019
For more information about any of our practice areas, please email the Communities Engagement Team