Drawing on insights from the Second Pensions Commission’s interim report, IFS Deputy Director Jonathan Cribb will examine the key issues likely to shape its final recommendations and the wider direction of pensions policy. He will explore the opportunities and risks presented by the different approaches under consideration, before considering the fundamental questions that may remain beyond the Commission’s final report.

Long-term run-on for DB schemes means protecting benefit security while generating sustainable value for members and sponsors. This requires more than managing individual mandates: it calls for integrated balance sheet management.

This session explores how an OCIO framework brings the Total Portfolio Approach to Cashflow Driven Investing, combining insurance-style cashflow discipline with active competition for capital. The aim is to lock in attractive yields without locking out better opportunities, managing assets, liabilities, liquidity and collateral together.

This session will address:

• Integrated balance sheet management: Aligning investments, liability management, and cashflow needs within a whole-portfolio framework.
• Competition for capital: Allocating across public and private markets as relative value shifts, balancing opportunity against risk, liquidity and switching costs.
• Delivering sustainable surplus: Combining downside resilience with the flexibility to capture opportunities and support long-term value for members and sponsors.

For most people, a pension represents a lifetime of work, saving and planning for the future. But as pensions become increasingly digital, the ways in which fraudsters can target those savings are changing too.

From stolen credentials and account takeover to synthetic identities, deepfakes and AI-powered impersonation, today's fraud landscape is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to detect. These threats can emerge at multiple points across the member journey, putting greater pressure on pension providers to understand who they are interacting with and identify potential fraud before money leaves the account.

This session will explore how fraud and identity threats are evolving across the pensions industry, where vulnerabilities can emerge across the member lifecycle, and why protecting retirement savings increasingly requires a layered approach to identity and fraud prevention. It will also consider one of the industry's biggest challenges: how to strengthen protection without creating unnecessary friction for genuine members accessing their money.

Because when someone has spent a lifetime building their retirement savings, protecting it shouldn't begin at the point of withdrawal.

Protect what you worked a lifetime for.

Fixed income markets are shifting. Rates remain volatile and spreads sit near historically tight levels, which means most of the yield on public corporate bonds now comes from the risk-free rate rather than from credit spread. At the same time, a surge in AI-driven hyperscaler issuance is reshaping the credit benchmarks many schemes hold.

This session will explore how privately originated investment grade credit can broaden the fixed income toolkit. It seeks additional spread and diversification through origination and structure, rather than by moving down the credit spectrum. The session will then turn to practical examples of how DB and DC schemes can put it to work.

This session will address:

• How rate volatility and hyperscaler issuance are reshaping public fixed income
• Capturing additional spread through private investment grade as public and private markets converge, without moving down the credit spectrum
• Practical applications for DB and DC schemes
  

Private markets offer a broad opportunity set, but what is investable will differ considerably from scheme to scheme. Objectives, maturity, liability and cashflow profiles, liquidity requirements and the existing portfolio will all shape which exposures can play a meaningful role.

This session will examine how schemes can translate those characteristics into private-market allocations, determining where different assets fit, the role they should perform and how they can be implemented within the wider investment strategy.

This session will address:

• Defining the portfolio role of different private assets
• Assessing liquidity capacity and investment horizon
• Integrating private assets with LDI and cashflow requirements
• Determining allocation, pacing and implementation

This is your chance to mingle, connect, and replenish your energy amidst the Investment Conference's vibrant atmosphere. Join us in savouring a spread prepared to elevate your midday experience. Whether you're networking, sharing insights, or simply taking a moment to unwind; Take a plate, and enjoy!

Across the pensions industry, schemes are putting capital to work in ways that can deliver both investment value and positive environmental and economic outcomes.

This session will shine a spotlight on schemes putting sustainable investment into practice, exploring what they invested in, how they approached it and the wider environmental and economic outcomes those investments are helping to deliver.

This session will address:

• Sustainable investment case studies
• What pension capital is financing
• Measuring investment and real-world outcomes
• Lessons, challenges and trade-offs along the way
  

Thank you for joining the Professional Pensions Investment Conference.

End the day with refreshments, conversation and a final opportunity to connect.