Pensioners received N67.42bn benefits in Q1 – PenCom

Pensioners received N67.42bn benefits in Q1 – PenCom

Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Nigeria paid N67.42 billion retirement benefits to pensioners under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in the first quarter of 2021, according to data obtained from the National Pension Commission.

“A total of N67.42 billion was paid as retirement benefits in Q1 2021. This was lower than the N90.99 billion paid in Q4 2020 by N23.57 billion,” the commission said in its Q1 report.

The report also showed that the number of workers with pension accounts rose by 84,270 to 9.3 million as of the end of March 2021 from 9.22 million at the end of December 2020.

Director-General, National Pension Commission, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar

“The cumulative RSA registrations grew from the 9,215,788 recorded in Q4, 2020 to 9,300,058 as at Q1, 2021, representing a 0.91 per cent growth, which was mainly  attributed to increased level of compliance by the public and private sectors,” it said.

PenCom said the number of workers with pension accounts rose from 9,097,803 as of Q2 2020 to 9,204,961 in Q3 2020.

According to the report, as of Q1 2021, the ranking of PFAs by number of registered contributors showed a marginal growth in the market share of the bottom three PFAs to 1.60 per cent in Q1 2021 from 1.5 per cent in Q4 2020.

It added that the bottom five PFAs recorded slight increase in the number of registered RSAs from 4.10 per cent in Q4 2020 to 4.20 per cent in Q1 2021.

“In the same vein, the bottom 10 PFAs recorded a marginal increase from 15.20 per cent in Q4 2020 to 15.30 per cent in Q1, 2021,” it added.

PenCom said the market share of the top three decreased from 37.40 per cent in Q4 2020 to 37.30 per cent in Q1 2021 while the market share of the top five PFAs declined from 53.20 per cent to 53.10 per cent.

The market share of the top 10 PFAs declined from 78.40 per cent in Q4 2020 to 78.30 per cent in Q1 2021.

“A further breakdown of the cumulative PFA registrations revealed that 15 PFAs had registered less than 500,000 RSAs each while the remaining seven PFAs had registered more than 500,000 RSAs each as at the end of the Q1 2021,” it said.