The city-state has steadily climbed from a C in 2009 to B+ in 2023 and earned its first-ever A grade in the annual Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index compiled by American consulting firm Mercer and the CFA Institute, a global association of investment professionals.
It now joins the Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark and Israel in the top league of the 2025 ranking, which scores 52 retirement income systems worldwide using more than 50 indicators grouped into three key pillars: adequacy, sustainability and integrity.
Adequacy evaluates whether a system provides enough income to maintain a decent living standard, while sustainability reflects its long-term capacity to meet future obligations and integrity gauges trust in the system.
Singapore’s pension framework is based on the CPF, a scheme covering all employed citizens and permanent residents through mandatory contributions from both workers and employers.
This year, Singapore scored 80.8, the highest in Asia and the fourth highest globally, and was one of eight systems that received an upgrade. No systems were downgraded this year, Mercer noted.
The city-state’s improved standing was mainly driven by stronger results in sustainability and integrity, which offset a slight dip in adequacy, as reported by The Straits Times.
Tim Jenkins, the report’s lead author and a partner at Mercer in Sydney, said Singapore authorities have worked to enhance transparency in recent years so that citizens have a clearer picture of their expected retirement payouts.
“The economy in Singapore has also helped,” he said, as quoted by Bloomberg, adding that long-term economic growth contributes to the sustainability metric.
Across Asia-Pacific, Australia’s retirement system ranked second with a score of 77.6, followed by that of Hong Kong at 70.6.
Other Southeast Asian names on the ranking included Malaysia (60.6), Vietnam (53.7), Indonesia (51.0), Thailand (50.6) and the Philippines (47.1).
Notably, Hong Kong and Malaysia saw their systems upgraded to B and C+, respectively.
Globally, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Denmark continued to lead the index with scores of 85.4, 84.0, and 82.3, respectively.