How Pension Funds can leverage gaming to grow returns

Pensions Funds are custodians. The remit of a fund is to grow the value of the investment made by employees and corporations. This in turn is meant to be used to support those employees in later life.

We previously wrote about how Banks can use gaming as part of a product offering.  A similar conversation this week sparked some thoughts on how Pension Funds can use gaming to grow value.

First, let us look at the definition of a Pension Fund thanks to Investopedia.

“A pension plan is a retirement plan that requires an employer to make contributions to a pool of funds set aside for a worker’s future benefit. The pool of funds is invested on the employee’s behalf, and the earnings on the investments generate income to the worker upon retirement.”

Pension Funds are actively managed and invest the contributions in different ways. The objective is to generate positive returns and be able to pay contributors upon retirement. These investments are often in the stock market, but they could also be in Bonds.

There is an opportunity for pension funds to use gaming to generate additional positive value for contributors. This could be done via ETFs, Exchange Traded Funds, which track a selection of stocks.

One such ETF is called NERD and it tracks a selection of companies from around the world. These include game publishers, computer hardware and peripherals companies and streaming platforms. It was launched in 2019 and in Year-To-Date records has generated an 8.1% return.

This article does not intend to provide investment advice and we are not qualified to provide it. Instead, this article aims to highlight another way that companies can look at and utilise the gaming industry in a context that is relevant to them.

As more people begin to play games, and Gen-Z grow up and enter the workforce, we will continue to see growth in the games industry. This in turn may lead to greater desire for products and services related to gaming because it is what Gen-Z will have grown up with.

Forward-thinking Funds and other businesses could use this as an opportunity to create products and services which will resonate with this audience.