38,518 Pension Contributors Migrate To New  PFAs

The National Pension Commission,says

no fewer than 38,518 workers who were displeased with their Pension Fund Administrators moved to other PFAs and transferred N148.11bn in their Retirement Savings Accounts within one year.

The  agency disclosed  this in a report titled ‘Quarterly summary of Retirement Savings Accounts transferred by Pension Fund Administrators’.

According to the report, 12,681 workers transferred N47.78bn in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 2,799 workers who transferred N18.90bn in the same period of 2020.

It said 12,872 workers transferred N45.56bn in Q3 2021, up from 10,166 workers who transferred N35.89bn in Q2 2021.

The pension regulator opened the transfer window in November 2020.

According to PenCom, Section 13 of the Pension Reform Act 2014 empowers an RSA holder to transfer their RSA to any PFA of choice, not more than once a year.

“Effective transfer of RSAs from one PFA to another requires an accurate and reliable database as it is important to ensure that the pension assets transferred belong to the bona-fide RSA holders initiating the transfers,” it said.

PenCom noted that the opening of the RSA transfer window was delayed to ensure that robust IT infrastructure that would drive the process was put in place.

It said the process was finalised in June 2019 with the deployment of an enhanced contributor registration system for the pension industry.

The pension regulator said the ECRS incorporated extensive validations, controls and data requirements that would deliver high data integrity standards for the pension industry.

It said the upgrade of RSA holders’ details to meet the ECRS standards was, therefore, a prerequisite for RSA transfers.

Those who registered with various PFAs from inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme to June 2019 were required to get recaptured, it added.