Last year’s market crash wiped $5,400bn (£3,290bn, €3,590) off the value of the industrialised world’s pension systems, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will say today.

The average pension fund lost 21.4 per cent in nominal terms in 2008, or 24.1 per cent in real terms, with the value destruction greater in countries most reliant on equity markets, such as Ireland, the US and Australia.