The rise of private defined contribution

If Japan’s pension reforms ever get under way in earnest, there could be substantial growth of private defined contribution plans, known as 401(k) after the US system. Japan’s pensions market is already very large. “The total size of the market is a little less than $3 trillion, as at March 2005,” says Shuichi Komori, president and CEO of Daiwa SB Investments Ltd. “Around 70% of our assets under discretionary management come from the pension fund industry, mostly in Japan.”