Pension Asset Hits N14.27tn as Number of Contributors Approaches 10m Mark
Ebere Nwoji
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has said that the total pension assets in the country reached N14.27 trillion as at the first half of this year, representing a growth of approximately N843billion when compared with N13.88 trillion recorded at the end of March this year.
This is contained in the unaudited monthly report of the commission for the first half of the year 2022 released by the commission in its official website.
The fund, according to PenCom, were contributed by a total of 9, 795,957 contributors who registered into the contributory pension scheme as at the period under review.
Out of the above number of contributors, PenCom said a total of 27,157 contributors dumped their former fund managers and migrated to new pension fund managers between January and June 2022, bringing the total number of RSA transfers processed by the commission to 78,549 since the opening of the transfer window barely two years ago.
The transfer window is an initiative of the commission, which gives contributors opportunity to move from one pension fund administrator to another.
According to PenCom, pension activities recorded the highest quarterly movements of contributors in the first quarter of 2021, 20.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, “an indication of increased competition in the industry.”
The commission said RSA registration grew by 2.8 per cent to stand at 9.79 million from 9.53 million recorded in December 2021, representing an increase of 266,830 new RSA registrations in six months.
Investment wise, the commission said the bulk of the assets were invested in federal government bonds.
“Pension Fund Assets were mainly invested in federal government securities, accounting for 61.26 per cent of total assets. The composition of investments in FGN Securities were as follows: FGN Bonds: 92.20 per cent, Treasury Bills: 3.45 per cent, and Agency Bonds, Sukuk and Green Bonds accounting for 1.29 per cent, ”PenCom stated.
It further said investments in corporate debt securities rose significantly by 26.11 per cent to N1.19 trillion in the review period while investments in real estate increased by 50.66 per cent to N236.2 billion as at June 2022 from N156.8 billion recorded as at the beginning of the year.
“Investments in private equity funds dipped slightly by 0.24 per cent to stand at N38.87 billion from N38.96 billion. PFA allocations to FGN securities stood at N9.01 trillion, a 2.67 percent increase from N8.77 trillion in December 2021, “it stated.
The report said PFAs raked in a total of N191.44 billion in the period under review.
Out of this, PenCom said the public sector accounted for N90.33 billion or 47.18 per cent while the private sector contributed N101.11 billion or 52.82 per cent.
It further said cumulative pension contributions from inception to the end of the first quarter of 2022 amounted to N7.77 trillion, which is an increase from N7.58 trillion as at the end of Q4, 2021.
In terms of contributions by the various funds, the PenCom’s report said the RSA fund II accounted for most of the fund contribution with N6.24 trillion, representing 43.7 per cent of the total pension funds, followed by RSA Fund III with N3.86 trillion, which represents 27 per cent of the total assets and existing schemes accounted for 10.1 per cent of the total funds, increased by N85.78 billion to stand at N1.44 trillion, while the Closed Pension Fund Administrators (CPFAs) accounted for 10.7 per cent of the total funds, standing at N1.52 trillion for the period.
Investments in the Nigerian stock market in the first half of the year grew by an additional N53.85 billion investments, bringing the total investments to N969.16 billion.
