Taiwanese have, on average, set aside significant amounts of savings for when they retire, but lag far behind their target for a decent retirement, a report by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
Retired Taiwanese have accumulated an average of NT$6.9 million (US$225,623) in retirement savings, not including real estate, falling short of an average target of NT$9.64 million by 28.42 percent, the study sponsored by Fubon Asset Management Co (富邦投信) found.
People who have not yet retired have set aside NT$2.5 million on average and believe the ideal sum to be NT$12.12 million, or nearly 80 percent off their target, it said.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
The findings indicate Taiwanese are ill-prepared for retirement in financial terms, the report said.
The report covers people aged 25 or older and takes a look at their financial standing, preparations for retirement and wealth management.
Although Taiwanese are assigning more importance to preparing for retirement, more than 50 percent rely on pension funds as their main source of income upon retiring, the report said.
Most people interviewed said that they do not have extra money to invest, although an increasing number agree they should tap other income sources.
Among all age groups, personal savings accounted for 74.4 percent of their retirement money, followed by investment income at 61.7 percent and government pension funds at 53.5 percent, the report said.
The study found that of the tools people used for investing, stocks constituted 65.8 percent, followed by exchange-traded funds at 35.9 percent and savings-like insurance policies at 32.8 percent.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS