Commuters on a street in Sydney. Regulators are investigating Brite Advisors, a global pension transfer specialist suspected by US and Australian officials of mishandling clients’ funds.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
Expat Retirement Savings at Risk in Maze of Pension Transfers
Global regulators are scrutinizing the opaque business of offshore pension management.
For the millions of expats who leave pension pots behind as they job-hop through the world’s financial hubs, retrieving that money has become a costly experience fraught with peril.
Often earning more than they would back home and holding sizeable assets and pensions, the growing population of globally mobile workers has become a prize for financial service providers. Agents offer to help people relocate their pensions and investments, relieving them of having to deal with burdensome paperwork or the maze of cross-border laws. For years, such services — among them funds that may charge excessive fees or lack transparency about risks — often operated beyond official scrutiny.