A pension account was worth RON1,330 on the average, four years after the start of the system. Almost 5% of the participants have no money in their accounts, while 10% to 20% do not get contributions deposited every month.
More than 30,000 employees joined the system last month; the number of new participants since the beginning of the year exceeds 110,000 people. New employees aged less than 35% have to choose a private pension fund within four months from getting their first job, and have 3.5% of the gross salary deposited into it. Most of them, however, do not pick a fund and are randomly assigned one.
The largest mandatory private pension funds are those managed by ING and Allianz-Tiriac. ING had 1.7 million participants and RON2.86 billion in assets at the end of last month, while Allianz managed RON1.76 billion in assets for 1.3 million participants. Next in the ranking are Generali and Alico, with several hundred million lei managed.
The asset volume on the voluntary private pension fund segment (pillar III) reached RON495 million at the end of April, up about RON12 million on the previous month. The 11 voluntary private pension funds had about 170,000 participants in late April.
The voluntary pension market has been slow to develop especially during the crisis, but the competitors on this market say companies are more careful to the benefit packages they give to their employees, which benefits include voluntary pensions. ING and Allianz-Tiriac are again the top two competitors, managing almost 70% of the assets.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)