More than 2.93 million employees under 45 years of age have already chosen a fund for their mandatory private pension (pillar II) in the first three months since joining one has become possible.
Approximately 330,000 clients have joined private pension funds in the last two weeks alone, according to the data collected by ZIARUL FINANCIAR from the 18 pension companies.
The sixth bimonthly reporting of the number of customers took place yesterday, three months after the start of the initial pension fund joining campaign. The number of 330,000 clients reported yesterday is the lowest of all the six bimonthly reports filed so far, which shows sales of pensions are visibly slowing down, as the market is drying out and winter holidays are making people less interested in such products.
The total number of clients on the market came close to three million yesterday, much higher than previously anticipated by the market. Only six months before that, estimates of the management companies pointed to a number of approximately 2.5 million clients that could be attracted during the four months allotted for initial fund joining (September 17 - January 17). Most bullish of forecasts at the time stopped at 2.8 million clients.
Yet now, after three of the four months of the initial fund joining campaign, the clients that have already signed up for a mandatory pension are close to three million, and market leaders estimate the total number could reach 3.5 million by the end of January 2008.
"This is a very good result, much better than the previous expectations. Over the coming period, pension funds will be hardly active, and we may have another 300,000 clients signed up until the last report is filed. The market will probably reach somewhere around 3.2-3.3 million clients," Mircea Oancea, chairman of the Private Pension System Supervisory Commission (CSSPP) told ZF.
Romania is already the second-largest private pension market in the region (in terms of number of participants) after Poland (13 million clients), and ahead of Hungary (2.8 million participants) and Bulgaria (2.6 million clients).
In other words, the mandatory pension campaign is already considered a success, both by officials and the players on the market.
Previous statistics showed that almost 40% of the clients that had joined in the first two months were part of the optional age segment (35-45 years).
It was them that took the market beyond expectations.
After the first three months, ING remains the leader of the mandatory private pension market, with almost 962,000 clients (and a 32.8% market share), followed Allianz-Tiriac (754,000 clients, that is 25.7%) and by Generali (277,000 clients, that is 9.4%). Aviva and Interamerican are the other two players in the top five.
Allianz-Tiriac, however, yesterday managed to outrun leader ING in terms of sales pace over the last few weeks, reporting almost 88,000 customers added over this period, compared with ING's 86,000.
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