Cref, the French civil servants complementary pension scheme with over €5bn ($4.3bn) in assets, is becoming a fully funded system that will be managed by three French mutual institutions.

Cref is run by Mutuelle Retraite de la Fonction Publique (MRFP), a non-profit insurance company which offers around 450,000 French civil servants a complementary pay-as-you-go type of pension. However, new European directives set in place in March last year require mutual fund companies to set aside sufficient funds to meet liabilities. For Cref, this means a progressive increase of provisions by €1.5bn over the next 25 years, and means it will have to restructure.