By NGOZI Onyeakusi

 

Company Secretary, NPF Pensions Limited, Ikechukwu Utazi (left); Managing Director, FUG Pensions, Usman Sulaiman; Head, Research and Corporate Strategy Department, National Pension Commission (PenCom), Dr Farouk Aminu; Chairman, Pension Funds Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Eguarekhide Longe; Executive Secretary, PenOp, Susan Oranye; Executive Director, Investment, NPF Pensions, Nicholas Nnaji and Managing Director, AXAMansad Pension, Dapo Akinsanya at a media retreat organised for insurance and pension journalists in Abeokuta, Ogun State recently.

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has been urged to speedy up implementation of transfer window.

Participants at the 2017 Media Retreat for National Association of Insurance and Pension Correspondents (NAIPCO) organized by PenOp in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, said further delay in implementation of the policy might pose threat to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) .

According to them, there was urgent need to open the transfer window now that CPS contributors stood at 7.5 million not when the number further grows and become difficult to manage.

Meanwhile, Executive Director Operations, CrusaderSterling Pensions, Conrad Ifode while presenting a paper at the event, said PenCom was taking its time to ensure that the registration of the contributors was done perfectly and devoid of multiple registrations. ” It is impossible to open the transfer window now because of inherent problems of multiple registrations, multiple pins, in fact there is no standard biometrics for the contributors. It is what all PFAs can do, that is bringing all pins digitalized”, he insisted.

Dwelling on the topic, Biometric Issues and Client Familiarity Requirement, Challenges and Potentials’, Ifode said there was a great need to take biometric of all contributors of the CPS.

He put biometrics to mean an automated method for recognizing individuals based on measuring biological and behavioral characteristics .

This biometrics, he said will enhance proper registration of the contributors in order to get rid of multiple registration which is currently a challenge in the industry.

He disclosed that multiple registration has been a major problem militating against implementation of the transfer window which the industry has been working to open.

The transfer window enables a contributors to move from one PFA to another based on the regulators specification.

He commended Lagos State Government for being in the fore front of the CPS, even as he called on other states to join the scheme .
He noted that Lagos State had directed the PFAs to take biometrics of its 28,000 RSA holders between now and the two years.

Describing Nigeria pension industry as a N6.5 trillion industry from N2.2 trillion deficit in 2004 disclosed that the total number of Retirees Savings Account (RSA) holders under the CPS has currently risen to 7.5 million.

According to him, break down of the report released by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) showed that Federal Government workers accounted for N1.8 million while private and state governments accounted for N4.1 million and N1.5 million respectively.