The National Pension Commission (PenCom) and the leadership of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) have confirmed an ongoing effort by both bodies to ensure that transfer window is opened by June 2020.
They noted that having gotten a tentative date is an indication that works was ongoing to ensure that the transfer window is open.
The transfer window is a platform created by PenCom to enable pension contributors who are dissatisfied with the services of their current Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) to transfer their retirement savings account (RSA) to any Pension Fund Administrator of their choice
The transfer window promises to be an exciting happening within the industry as PFAs are set to slug it out with each other in a competitive market to retain old contributors and as much as possible win new ones. A lot of experts in the industry have made predictions with dates, however these predictions have proved wrong, and now the new one.
Bayo Yusuf, treasurer of PenOp and managing director/CEO, UBA Pension Custodians said both bodies were working together to achieve the June 2020 date.
I am happy to inform you the much awaited transfer window will be opened by that, having been agreed by both us.
Peter Aghaghowa head, Corporate Communication, PenCom said the fact that a date had been tentatively fixed is an indication that work was in progress to actualize the mandate.
He said that the pension operators and PenCom had been meeting and work had reached an advanced stage towards achieving the ideal.
“One thing that is critical towards this is the Enhanced Contributor Registration System (ECRS) that was recently launched.
“That is what is making our data integrity better, coupled with the fact that we are also linked with the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) on the issue of National Identification Number (NIN).
“You can be sure that in a couple of months, the data we have will be integral because it is a prerequisite for the transfer window and that is why we say we are getting closer and optimistic that we will reach the milestone,” he said.
Earlier at the retreat, Aghaghowa hinted that 19 PFAs had registered over 28,000 participants for the newly launched Micro Pension Plan (MPP) for the self-employed as of October 2019.
He said the plan was introduced to have the self-employed inculcated into the pension arrangement in order to capture a large chunk of the working population in Nigeria.
According to him, the MPP has a peculiarity in terms of contribution, registration and investment and the guidelines provided for the management of funds are in line with the multi-fund structure.
He said that the scheme, among other things, was designed to improve the standard of living of the self-employed on retirement, among other benefits.
“The requirement of NIN as a prerequisite to register for the scheme has slowed down the process of the MPP,” Aghaghowa said.
He, however, disclosed that dialogue was ongoing between the commission and NIMC to collaborate and enable PenCom to generate PIN for its clients to register seamlessly for the scheme.
The PenCom official said that the challenges confronting the MPP included low financial literacy, low NIN registration, low awareness about MPP and inadequate technology platform to support the scheme.
Ronke Adedeji, president of PenOp, also said that while the pension scheme was so far a success story, a lot of work still needed to be done to make it better.
Adedeji said the ongoing data verification was to ensure that the database of contributors was clean and in a state suitable for the transfer window.
She said that the requirement of NIN was one of the major challenges that had marred the process of the data clean up.
“But we are making progress, and now with the collaboration with NIMC, we expect that the transfer window will evolve after the data clean up”, she said.
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