Challenges and solutions of Pension Funds: A Case Study of military Pension Fund

The purpose of this study is to identify and recognize the problems of Military Pension Fund of Islamic Republic of Iran and provide solutions to strengthen its financial situation. In this regard, documentary analysis, applied method and statistical forecast model are used. According to the investigations, this pension fund performs in the form of defined benefit (DB) and its mechanism is based on PAYG system. In fact, in this system the retirement pensions are provided from insurance Deductions of employees. Furthermore, dependency ratio of this fund (the number of retirees to employees) is about 0.85, while its normal ratio is 7. So, it can be concluded that military pension fund is exposed on a severe financial deficit. In fact, since 2011, all retirement salaries of this fund have been paid by government. In other words, the amount of government assistance from budget source to this fund has increased more than 6 times in the past decade. One of the fundamental solutions to prevent the possibility of Military Pension Fund bankruptcy is that it will operate independently and without full support of government. For this purpose, capital adequacy of this pension fund should be increased based on Value at Risk approach which is applied in this study.