We are no longer going to talk about the current conditions of pension plans, or whether they are competitive or not. At a time like the present, it is more relevant to try to assess whether it is worth putting part of our money or not in these products.
As always when it comes to financial products, the answer is not simple. Firstly, because it depends to a large extent on the profile of the savers themselves, but also because there is no universal solution that gets it right in all cases as to what is and what is not suitable in finance.
Who is interested in pension plans today?
Actually, the drop in the amount of tax deductible and also the drop in the yield of these products has made them of little interest. On the other hand, although not many years ago they were sold to us as a product that improved substantially over time, the truth is that not many pension plans have really produced spectacular results.
In fact, even in the medium term, many of these products have shown mediocre results. Therefore, if we subtract a lower tax deduction and a relatively mediocre result in a context of low interest rates, the truth is that they do not seem to have been very attractive to anyone.
However, this is not correct. If we take into account that the reality of saving for retirement is based on something as simple (sometimes as difficult to carry out) as diversification, we understand that it is very necessary to incorporate different savings products and tools.
Pension plans are one of these savings tools and despite not being of great interest to the average, due to the aforementioned, it is still a tool that provides some tax relief and that in the medium and long term can provide a relatively acceptable return.
It seems difficult that at a time like the present, it is a product that attracts a saver who wants to value it exclusively for his retirement. However, it does not seem so complicated that it could be interesting as a diversification tool for savers who place their money in different products. In addition, the attractiveness of the tax deduction, even if it is on a smaller amount, is still interesting.
On the other hand, we must also bear in mind that occupational pension plans, which are intended to be promoted since the tax relief was cut for individual plans, are not progressing at the speed they were supposed to.
This means that the savings model that this type of tool represents has a significant gap in terms of active presence. If we add to this the fact that interest rates seem to be on the rise, and we are waiting for the movements of the central banks, mainly North American and European in this respect, it could be that, with the end of the year, the reactivation of the bonus campaigns and a potential increase in the expected profitability, could regain some momentum.
