(April 26 – 18:10 ET) – The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s International Network of Pensions Regulators and Supervisors has approved a set of principles for the regulation of private occupational pension plans.

The principles are designed to safeguard the interests of beneficiaries and ensure the efficient running of such plans. They cover areas ranging from supervision to investment policy. They were drawn up by an OECD Working Party on Private Pensions in November 2000, and approved at a meeting of the INPRS in Sofia, Bulgaria on April 25.

The principles address such issues as: appropriate regulation of financial markets; beneficiary rights; adequacy of the private schemes; insolvency insurance; appropriate disclosure and education; and corporate governance.

This is the first time that best practices in the area of private pension systems have been agreed by an international body of this sort. The principles fill a gap in international best practice of financial regulation.