Changjiang Pension Insurance
With the international situation on the cusp of significant change, China has entered into a new journey towards becoming a modern socialist country and still faces increased instability and uncertainty.
We believe “staying true to original aspiration” and “going back to basics” are important, especially in the ever-changing environment. These mottos will be the key foundation of the long-term development of the country’s pensions industry.
China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. Ltd. (CPIC) aims to develop itself as a “long-termist” in the insurance industry. As a professional pension insurance subsidiary of CPIC, Changjiang has been focusing on safekeeping individuals’ hard-earned retirement money. The long-term nature of pension determines that its managers need to be “a friend of time”.
With over 1 trillion RMB (US$154 billion) of assets under management currently, Changjiang has been doing well in China’s Three-pillar System.
In the first pillar, the company continues to attract new funding from National Council for Social Security Fund due to excellent performance.
In the second pillar, Changjiang has achieved 100% selection of trustees and investment managers in the whole 33 occupational annuity projects in China. The company has made breakthroughs in the enterprise annuity market and the asset size of group pension security products still ranks first.
As for the third pillar, we continue to optimise product mix and actively participate in individual pension system policy research.
In the face of sharp market fluctuations, Changjiang pursues investments calmly and adjusts the portfolio in a dynamic way to minimise market risks. In 2020, Changjiang generated an investment gain of 66 billion RMB for its clients. The cumulative investment gain since the company was established in 2007 was 160 billion RMB.
These high-quality achievements were primarily due to our perseverance in long-termism. The company will have to identify more driving forces to upgrade at a new starting point.
As such, Changjiang has come up with new slogans, such as “the client is our original aspiration”, “talent is our core”, and “technology is our focus”. We are striving to provide service with excellence, build a high-quality investment team and technology platform, and finally, to become a top technology-based pension manager at home and abroad.
Looking forward, we will set our sights on four long-term targets.
The first is exploring long-term value from pension investment. On this front, we believe that continuous capital accumulation and effective strategic allocation for pension and insurance assets are key. They will not only be beneficial to the company itself, but also be positive for the country in the context of social prosperity, local enterprise development, and individual well-being.
In addition, with an ageing population and growing domestic consumption, individuals are increasingly selective when it comes to buying financial products. Therefore, Changjiang will provide its clients with more easy-to-understand and highly transparent products to address their various investment demands.
The second goal is developing long-term environmental, social and governance (ESG) benchmarks. Changjiang aims to incorporate ESG assessment into its strategic and management processes and open up more co-development opportunities.
This will help Changjiang provide high quality financial services to real economies, beef up social security, and generate higher returns for its shareholders, staff, and clients.
The third target is making talent and technology a long-term driving force. We view talent as core capital for the company’s long-term development, and consider technology as an important tool to assimilate “individual wisdom” into “company’s wisdom”.
The company will constantly review its incentive system to retain talent. It will also press ahead with integrating technology with its core businesses, and applying the capabilities of outperforming portfolio managers into the digital investment platform. The move will help bolster the company’s long-term competitiveness.
The fourth target is to develop a long-term ecosystem. Our parent group CPIC is looking to develop a model that can put the synergy between “insurance, pension and healthiness” into effect. We believe this “virtuous ecosystem” will improve the company’s resource management to support its growth, and in turn to create a more stable business model.
* Geoff Su is chairman of Changjiang’s Board of Directors