New IT application at the UN Staff Pension Fund

New IT application at the UN Staff Pension Fund

Presumably most of you, as long-term beneficiaries of the Fund (UNJSPF), receive your pension in regular monthly payments. But in recent months, the situation for newly retired staff, or those affected by a change in their pension, has been quite irregular. As of July 2015 the Pension Fund has implemented a new computer system known as the Integrated Pension Administration System (IPAS), with the aim of integrating all the services the Fund provides.

As a result, despite the fact that the system had been trialled first, the process of determining and calculating pension claims with the new application has caused significant delays to retirees’ initial pension payment. According to information provided by the Fund at the beginning of May, this backlog is now being reduced from 5-6 months to 2-3 months’ wait. Communication of these delays has been sorely lacking and it was only after repeated warnings from staff and retiree unions and associations, including the Former Officials Section, as well as administrations of UN organizations, that information was disseminated at all.

As a matter of fact this new application concerns all retired beneficiaries of the Fund. Perhaps a few of you already log on to the Fund’s website to access general information about rates of exchange and the cost of living index, or indeed your own payments. This has been possible for many years now.

The website is now being radically altered to facilitate and promote direct online access by each and every one of us (for those who can and do use the Internet) to the services of the Pension Fund: this is the Member Self Service (MSS) feature.

In this regard you will have received a letter explaining that a new password will have to be used once the new system is rolled out from June onwards. But please don’t worry. Even if we do not avail ourselves of this service, we will still continue to receive our pensions. It is to be hoped that the Fund will not forget that there are those who do not use the Internet, and will continue to disseminate information by post. Even so, for many of us the MSS may well be a plus point, not only giving us access to relevant information but also allowing us to transmit information of our own to the Fund.

The delays in payments of the first pensions to new retirees or survivors has become a serious issue. We advise all those to put a bit of money aside to meet expenses in the first five or six months.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 19 October 2016, the Bureau of the Former Officials Section will organize an information meeting for all retirees in the Geneva area about the services available through the new IPAS system, and Member Self Service in particular. Representatives of the Pension Fund in Geneva will be present to discuss the theme. Please make a note of this date in your diary if you are able to attend. For colleagues in other regions we will make arrangements to publish the results of the meeting and any other information which may be useful.

Bureau of the Former Officials’ Section