Aviva Asigurari de Viata, already a licensed manager of optional private pensions, estimates it will sell the first pensions on May 15, says Corina Cucoli, bancassurance manager with the company.
"We hope to sell the first optional pensions starting May 15 using a field force of around 2,000 marketing agents," stated Corina Cucoli. The company has been recently licensed as a manager of optional private pensions (pillar III) and has received the authorisation for the issue prospectus for its first optional pensions fund.
As soon as it gets green light from the Private Pensions Commission (CSSPP) for the authorisation of the fund, Aviva will start selling optional pensions, first targeting the large companies already part of its portfolio.
Besides its first pensions fund, Aviva is also awaiting CSSPP's consent for its already existing field force: 1,200 full-time marketing agents and another 800 part-time ones. Aviva will manage a single pillar III fund at first, with a moderate risk profile. "We'll invest between 10% and 35% of the pension fund assets in listed shares, with investments to be exclusively operated on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in the first year," says Cucoli. The rest of the money in the fund will be invested in monetary market instruments (between 5% and 20% of assets), bonds (5%-30%) and other placements.
"I believe optional pensions are a corporate business, so we'll mainly sell these products to companies," she specified. Additionally, Aviva is currently seeking "the right legal solutions" to use its partnerships with three banks and a consumer lending firm to sell optional pensions through their banking networks. Aviva currently has bancassurance partnerships with BRD SocGen, BRD Finans (BRD's consumer finance company), ABN Amro and Credit Europe Bank. "As a matter of fact," Cucoli says, "a survey Aviva conducted last year shows Romanians have the highest confidence in banks of all financial institutions".
In terms of compulsory private pensions (pillar II), where sales are to start in August), Cucoli believes it is ambitious targets that matter the most. "If you can't attract a number of customers that may place you among the top five companies on the market, you'd better not enter at all," she says.
Aviva will file a licensing application for pillar II next week at the latest.
"While optional pensions are a corporate business, compulsory ones are an individual business. Moreover, the latter is a volume business, where gaining a high number of customers is essential, especially given the high expenses related to the big investments needed to make pension funds operational," says Cucoli.
"We've already recruited around 10,000 marketing agents for pillar II, of the around 20,000 we'll use," she says. Aviva wants to attract approximately 1 million customers for pillar II.
Aviva surveys show that...
On the financial market, Romanians trust banks the most
Generally, Romanians' appetite for risk in terms of investments is relatively low
Two thirds of large companies want to offer private pensions to their employees
16% of these are multinationals that will give the lead
A private pension for which contributions are made for 30 years is approximately twice higher than a pension for which contributions are made for 20 years
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