By Favour Nnabugwu

In less than five months to the recapitalisation of deadline for Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), the PFAs have met N50 billon while the other are still struggle to beat the April 2022 timeline.H

Head Surveillance Department of the commission,  Ehimeme Ohioma made this known to members of the National Association of Insurance and Pension Correspondents (NAIPCO) at a one day seminar  in Lagos yesterday

He said others are currently undergoing either mergers or acquisition to meet the new capital requirement.

Explaining further on the need for recapitalisation, he said the objective of the  recapitalization exercise  was to improve the financial stability and operational efficiency in the industry.

“Tthe last exercise was done in 2011, the share capital of Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) at the start of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) was N150million and it was later increased to N1billion in 2011. This is the second increase of the share capital of PFAs within this scheme.

” It is obvious the industry has really grown. it’s Assets Under Management has increased, the number of registered contributors has also increased and this requires increase in capital that the PFAs will have to deploy into its operations.

.”We are competing with the banks, fund managers and they need to attract talents and they need capital to do that.”

“Another area is the digitalization and automation of our operations. We need to do a lot of investment in ICT infrastructure and this cost money too. All these involves providing very topnotch service delivery by PFAs, he said”

He noted that the PFAs has actually be responsive to the ongoing consolidation within the industry.

“We are having bigger players and big opportunity for financial sector to come and play in the industry.”

Also, Managing Director/CEO Access Pension Fund Custodian and Head, Media Committee of PenOp, Mrs. Idu Okwuosa, hinted plans by the operators to work with some insurance companies in 2022  to provide more robust incentives such as health insurance for micro pension contributors.

She listed loss of job policy and term life assurance as some added incentives that the industry will looking for contributors under the micro pension plan.

Okwuosa said some operate have visited market such as the Alaba International market to enlighten them on the need to save and plan for retirement through the MPP.

She said they have commence discussion and hopefully next year when the incentives are concluded they will be registered fully