As the race to meet pension sector recapitalisation deadline by June 30th, 2027, gets board commanding focus, operators attention has been shifted to scan the acronym SCOPE – Scale, Compliance and Regulatory Awareness, Organisation Adoption of Technology, People Strategy and Culture and, External Engagement and Differentiation, to fit squarely after the recapitalisation fades out.
Former Chief Executive Officer of Pension Operators Association of Nigeria(PenOp), Mr Oguche Agudah, who now is Founder and Managing Partner, HRISP Partners, stated these while delivering a paper titled Post Recapitalisation and Market Dynamics in Nigerian Pension Industry at the 11th Annual National conference of Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors( NAIPE) in Lagos recently..
Agudah said, the mergers between Trust-fund Pensions and Premium Pension and, between Leadway and PAL Pension brings ashore the advantages of economies of scale, improving business operations, streamlining costs and compete smart.
On compliance and regulatory awareness, Agudah noted that, pension was the most regulated sector and this has put the regulator at the centre ensuring that operators are kept on the lane.
On adoption of technology, he said, operators must ask themselves the question on how to leverage technology to make their operations quicker, simple and help them to scale. According to him, they should also meditate on how to use Artificial Intelligence to compete as well as how to manage cyber security threat.
Agudah said the on going recapitalisation exercise in the industry, mandates all pension fund administrators to raise their minimum capital from N5 billion to N20 billion and one percent more if their Asset Under Management is above N500 billion while pension fund custodians ( PFCs) are to raise their minimum capital to N25 billion by June 2027.
He explained that reasons for the recapitalisation was for consolidation, need to shore up the sector, create confidence in the sector, and to strengthen the industry.
Agudah challenged the operators to see what lay ahead of the minimum recapitalisation and prepare to be more stronger, more resilient and in line with the developmental needs of the country.
“Beyond recapitalisation, there are guidelines for cross- boarder pension contribution such as review of investment guidelines to allow for more investments in sectors that promote economic growth, guidelines for agents to deepen personal pension plan coverage and include minors, guidelines for improved corporate governance of licensed pension fund operators, framework for payment of additional benefit for retiring civil servants as well as framework for pension compliance certificate and contribution,” he highlighted..
On current pension market dynamics, Aguda said, overview of the entire market shows that the banking sector, insurance sector and investment managers are core owners of the market.
He listed banks which have stakes in the pension sector as Stanbic IBTC Bank which owns Stanbic IBTC Pensions, Access Bank which owns Access ARM Pensions, GTCO which owns GTCO Pension Managers, Fidelity Bank, which owns Fidelity Pension Managers Ltd and FCMB which owns FCMB Pensions.
Agudah highlighted pension institutions owned by insurance firms as Leadway Pension Managers owned by Leadway Group, Crusader Sterling Pensions, Oak Pensions Limited and Veritas Glanvils Pensions .
According to Aguda, those owned by investment groups include Parthian Pensions, Trustfund Pension, Cardinalstone Pensions and. CitizensPensions.
