April 9, 1998
Statement of Incorporation of the JSCPA
Thirty years have passed since the Employees’ Pension Fund (EPF) system started. Through these years, the EPFs have become popular and have developed steadily. They have established as corporate pension plans for a comfortable retirement lives, together with public pensions. With approximately 1,900 funds and 12 million participants, occupies around 40 percent of the number of insured of the Employees’ Pension Insurance, the amount of the asset is now more than 45 trillion yen.
However, since the collapse of the bubble economy in the late 1980s, the Japanese economy has been sluggish, and funded status of EPF has been worse in the weak investment environment. Therefore, over the past two years, discussions on corporate pensions and the fund system have been made among various parties such as industrial circles and labor associations, including “The study group on Employees’ Pension Fund system” in the Ministry of Health and Welfare and “The study group on corporate pension in 21st century” at the Employees' Pension Fund Association. The results of these studies have been released since last year.
Against this background, the Ministry of Health and Welfare issued a new notice of changes of the EPF funding rules (1997) for the financial soundness of EPFs. The changes included the expansion of scope of the EPFs’ autonomous funding management and the introduction of the Appointed Certified Pension Actuary System, which led to the expansion of the business for Certified Pension Actuaries. In addition, coming up for discussion on the introduction of the plan specific exempted premium rate Certified Pension Actuaries had more responsibilities. The pension plan should be operated on a long-term basis; thus, sound funding management is critical based on appropriate pension actuarial principles for protection of the pension benefits that support comfortable retirement lives.
We, Certified Pension Actuaries, have been continued to work for the sound development of the EPFs and the National Pension Funds since September 1988, when the Certified Pension Actuary system was legislated. The current number of Certified Pension Actuaries has increased to 243.
For the expansion of the scope of our activities and the increase of responsibilities from this business year, we are demanded to raise and standardize quality of professional services by establishing a code of conduct as well as actuarial standards of practice. In order to meet these demands and serve the public interest, we have decided to incorporate the Japanese Society of Certified Pension Actuaries as an organization that is socially recognized and operated based on all the Certified Pension Actuaries’ consensus, and then the base of our activities will be solid.
We hereby declare the incorporation of the Japanese Society of Certified Pension Actuaries.
