The mandatory pension market has 6.800 foreign participants

In the report on the private pensions system on the third quarter 2008 of the Romanian Private Pension Supervisory Commission (CSSPP) it is noticed the fact that on the Second Pillar the participants with statute of non-resident in Romania represent only 0,18% of the total. Out of a number of 3,779 million persons with at least one monthly contribution, 6.800 are non-resident.

The non-resident participants are the foreign citizens that have work license in Romania and pay their contributions for social insurances.

Two customers of one thousand are foreigners

Foreigners who came to work in Romania represent only 0,18% of the total number of mandatory private pension funds’ participants (2nd Pillar), meaning that two customers of one thousand have other citizenship than Romanian. According to an analysis of the portal pensiileprivate.ro, over a half of the foreigners have entered in the system of mandatory private pensions in the initial campaign (September 2007–January 2008) and less than a half have entered the system through the process of continuum adhesion. The biggest five mandatory pension funds from the market (by the number of customers) have in their portfolio a total number of 3.654 foreign citizens, who came to work in Romania and who according to the law must adhere to these private pension funds. The total customer portfolio of ING Fond de Pensii counts 1.100 participants of foreign nationality, while Allianz-Tiriac Pensii Private counts 1.011 foreign participants. The funds administrated by  Generali Fond de Pensii and Aviva Pensii have 667, and respective 526 participants of foreign nationality and Interamerican Pensii, 350. These five funds of the 2nd Pillar make up 82% of the total number of participants.  

The continuum adhesion

Within the processes of adhesion to the mandatory pension funds, the number of the new entrants in the system was of 253.439 participants in the period January-August 2008, 31.255 of these being own adherents, and 222.184 being distributed aleatory by NHPOSIR. Of the new entrants in the system, less than 2.000 are participants of foreign nationality, meaning less than 1%. The administration companies consider that the big number of new entrants in the 2nd Pillar is due to the number of graduates of superior studies (twice more in 2008 than in the previous years), of the seasonal jobs and by legalizing some jobs that previously weren’t stated officially.

“The value of the sums managed by the administrators of mandatory private pension funds will exceed 850 million lei at the end of 2008, and the number of the customers will be close of four million”, estimated the president of CSSPP, Mircea Oancea. At the beginning of the period of continuum adhesion, the chief of the private pensions expected that the number of the customers from the second Pillar will increase with 100-150.000 new entrants in the system, yearly. The figure was exceeded long time ago. If at the end of the initial period of adhesion, the Second Pillar had 4,156 million participants, at the end of October, those 14 mandatory private funds counted almost 4,410 million adherents. In seven months of continuum adhesion the 2nd Pillar has won over 253.000 new customers. This means that with an average rhythm of about 36.200 new adherents monthly, the 2nd Pillar would win in one year over 434.400 participants, three times more than the most optimistic estimations. “In the Budget Law, the estimated number of  jobs in 2008 was of  4,85 million, however at the moment we have between 5,7 and 5,9 million jobs declared and for which are paid contributions of public social insurances”, recently stated the Ministry of Labour, Mariana Campeanu, former president of NHPOSIR, outlining the idea that by starting the Second Pillar the economy pulled to surface the new tax payers to the social insurances.