On The Prevention Of Legal Risks Of Pension Consumer Trust

As China’s population ages and the problem of fewer children intensifies,the elderly dependency ratio in China will continue to rise and will exceed the child dependency ratio by 2025,which will bring enormous financial expenditure and pressure on the livelihood of the elderly,especially in the face of the emergence of a large number of single elderly people.Under this circumstance,an old-age consumer trust with two functions of "investment and financial management" and "old-age service" has come into being,which is conceived by scholars and promoted by trust companies.This product can not only relieve the pressure of the basic pension insurance and enterprise annuity,but also provide long-term security arrangements for the elderly who are alone in their old age.However,most of the pension consumption trust products in the market are "embedded" pension consumption pooled fund trust plans,which are not very different from ordinary pooled fund trust plans in terms of function design,product cycle and investment threshold,except for the special feature of giving the beneficiaries the rights and benefits of pension goods/services.This has led to the lack of universality and service attributes of the pension consumer trust,which is not only very different from the conceived product model,but also conceals many legal risks.The trust company only needs to raise trust funds from the elderly directly to the financing needs of the elderly industry,generally for the elderly real estate developers,can be sold to the public under the name of "elderly",this practice not only involves false propaganda,but also to the elderly on the interests of infringement.The pension industry has a large capital gap,financing difficulties and long investment cycle,the trust company through the financing of its equity investment income,and can not meet the high yield requirements of the consumer pooled fund trust plan,in order to ensure that the income trust company will sign with the pension industry party "clear shares of real debt" agreement,this practice is actually the "non-standard" financing type.This is actually a "non-standard" financing type of REIT nested in a pension consumer trust,and then sold to the elderly.In this case,the segregation of trust funds,the use of trust funds and the realization of the rights and interests of senior citizens are difficult to be guaranteed,because there is a risk that the "explicit equity in debt" is invalidated by the court,and most of the target companies of the "non-standard" financing trusts are small and medium-sized private enterprises.Such companies have a single means of financing and poor financial status,and have a relatively large credit risk,which does not guarantee the successful completion and operation of the senior housing projects,so that the senior citizens can cash in on their consumer rights.The reasons for the above legal risks,apart from the inadequacy of supporting measures such as information disclosure system and business qualification examination system,are the failure of the regulatory authorities to accurately define pension consumer trusts as asset service trusts,and their failure to regulate and supervise "non-standard" financing trusts,"explicit shares but real debts" business.The regulation and supervision of "non-standard" financing trust business and "explicit equity but real debt" business are not in place.In the context of the national encouragement of the development of the third pillar of personal pension insurance system,in order for pension consumer trusts to develop in the expected direction,the regulatory authorities should clarify the types of pension consumer trusts,strengthen the regulation of illegal "non-standard" business,and improve the protection for the elderly under "explicit equity in real debt" business.The regulators should clarify the types of trust business for senior citizens,strengthen the regulation of illegal "non-standard" business,improve the protection measures for senior citizens under the business of "clear equity but real debt",establish a perfect business qualification examination system and trust disclosure system,carry out special supervision for senior citizen consumer trusts,and promote the business transformation of trust companies through a perfect taxation system,so as to prevent the legal risks that exist in senior citizen consumer trusts.