The first speaker in the afternoon session's panel discussion was Ms. Wong Su-Yen who is the Chairman (Singapore) of Marsh & McLennan Companies. She did a comparative analysis of the best practices in retirement funding around the world. I will not go into the details but there are 3 points I would note here: 1. The CPF, Singapore's "pension system" does not cover all adult Singaporeans. It is not universal. This is something which was mentioned in the morning session as well. 2. The dependence of the CPF on SSGS to generate returns means it does poorly in asset diversification. She suggested that people be given more flexibility to invest their CPF savings in the earlier years of their working life. This should taper off as they age.

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3. There is a growing gap between the official retirement age and the life expectancy of Singaporeans......