University joint venture aims to enhance research
Leading actuarial firm, Rice Walker has entered into a joint venture with the Australian National University (ANU) aimed at compiling a more comprehensive picture of Australia’s retirement savings and superannuation landscape.
One of the first products of the new joint venture will be an update of the Investment and Financial Services Association’s (IFSA) Savings Gap report which will be released at the IFSA Conference in Brisbane, early next month.
Announcing the joint venture arrangement yesterday, Rice Walker director, Michael Rice said that ANU had been chosen by the company because it represented one of four universities in Australia providing a seat in actuarial studies.
He said the joint venture would take Rice Walker’s intellectual property and combine it with the ANU’s computing power to generate a unique model which would extend beyond retirement and superannuation into aged care, health and life insurance.
Walker said that moving beyond its initial activity within the joint venture, it was hoped to fully review the Australian retirement landscape in circumstances where around 50 per cent of people were outliving their retirement savings.
He said a key motivator in entering into the joint venture were the physical research restraints which had been encountered by Rice Walker and the firm’s belief that there was a dearth of quality research in the area of superannuation and retirement incomes in Australia.
Walker said the joint venture would be staffed by two actuaries and three other Rice Walker employees, and three actuaries from ANU along with other university statisticians and researchers.
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