Camille Van Vyve
23 Jul 2024
Easyvest launches pension fund to challenge group insurance in Belgium
Brussels, 20th of July, 2024. Easyvest, the leading fintech in index investing in Belgium, announces the creation of the Easyvest Pension Fund, a unique multi-employer pension fund in the Belgian landscape. The goal: to revolutionize the second pillar pension for employees, dominated by so-called "group insurance" contracts, by offering both better return prospects and better service.
Currently, 80% of supplementary pension plans for employees are group insurances. These contracts are primarily based on Branch 21 products, guaranteeing capital and an annual return that struggles to beat inflation. Indeed, the premiums paid under these contracts are mostly invested in government bonds, which, although low-risk, also offer low returns. However, in a long-term context such as pension planning – with an investment horizon of up to 40 years – investing without risk is a financial aberration.
The remaining 20% of the market is captured by pension funds which, unlike Branch 21 group insurances, invest more in stocks. Although riskier, these generate more return in the long term. This is revealed by PensioPlus, the industry association: over the past 40 years, Belgian pension funds have achieved an average return of 6,2% per year, about 3 times more than group insurances, which hover around 2%!
But due to their structural costs, pension funds were previously reserved only for very large companies, entire parity sectors, and certain public institutions.
Easyvest Pension Fund changes the paradigm by pooling structural costs among several employers and digitizing everything. Regardless of its size, any employer can now affiliate with the Easyvest pension fund and thus offer its employees and managers long-term performing pension plans, entirely based on ETF index funds.
On Easyvest's website, HR departments can open and manage their employees' pension plans in just a few clicks, and employees can track the evolution of their pension capital in real-time. Everyone will see which stocks and bonds the plans are invested in, without jargon, and with complete transparency on fees and taxes.
Specifically designed to counter the administrative burden and low returns of group insurance, Easyvest Pension Fund is aimed at all companies concerned with providing a comfortable pension for their employees while benefiting from premium and personalized service. The ambition? Within 10 years, convince 10.000 companies to affiliate with Easyvest Pension Fund for the benefit of 100.000 Belgian employees, targeting one billion euros in assets under management.
To achieve this, Easyvest will strengthen its workforce with varied profiles. The fintech is looking for Pension Managers specializing in Employee Benefits product distribution, as well as Full Stack Developers, to continue building its "PensionTech."
Would you like to be among the first to test Easyvest Pension Fund? Visit our dedicated webpage.
Info and interviews
Matthieu Remy, Co-founder and CEO
matthieu.remy@easyvest.be, 0499/94 13 70
About Easyvest
Easyvest SA is a fintech approved by the FSMA as a portfolio management company, helping Belgians simply build performing investment portfolios. Created in 2016 by Matthieu Remy (Civil Engineer UCL, MBA Harvard Business School) and Corentin Scavée (Louvain School of Management), Easyvest currently serves 3.000 clients for whom it manages over 185 million euros in investments. Whether individual investments or collective ones via Easyvest Pension Fund, the intention remains the same: to ensure Belgians a financially dignified pension with the best possible returns. Temporarily becoming #1 in the Belgian App Store in 2021, Easyvest's application and its patented pension aggregator have already been downloaded by 20.000 people.