• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

PFAs intensify data recapturing to enhance pension system

pension-funds

Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) have intensified efforts towards data recapturing with the view to achieving harmonized information of all Retirement Savings Account(RSA) holders under the Contributory Pension Scheme(CPS).

The exercise according to Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) will enable PFAs reconcile the previous information they have about their contributors to enhance credibility of the system.

Ronke Adedeji, president of PenOp who disclosed the development said PFAs are reaching out to individual contributors to update their records, while also they are falling back on Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) for those who already have data with banks.

Adedeji stated that the ongoing data recapturing exercise is compulsory for all Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders, urging contributors not to wait for their PFAs to notify them, but rather, willingly approach their pension administrators for the recapturing exercise.

“People should go and update their data and should not wait for PFAs to come to them before they subject themselves to this exercise. The process has started, PFAs have invested so much into the project and operators are progressively approaching their customers to recapture their data.”

Adedeji noted that because of the difficulty in rescheduling people , the time involved and the resources needed to do all that, PFAs are falling back on BVN available with the banks, while those without bank accounts will be reached individually.

She stated that for now, there is no deadline, since the exercise is just starting but that in future, there could be a deadline, depending on the response of Pension contributors toward this exercise. She also said that the data recapturing exercise is in the interest of contributors as well as the pension industry, noting that, operators are eager to capture pension account holders as much as possible.

“It is going to be a long and pain staking exercise. It is a very huge project and it has started and so people should not wait for their PFAs to come to them, but should walk into their PFAs to update their records, she said.

According to experts in the industry one of the benefits of the data recapturing is to reconcile information of some pension contributors that may have inadvertently registered with more than one Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), in other words having more than one PIN.

The PFAs action currently falls in line with the National Pension Commission (PenCom) directive that contributors and retirees under their management should be aligned with National Identity Management Commission(NIMC) data base.

Findings have shown that some contributors do not know which PFA to align with since they have PIN with more than one PFA, and in some cases have their contributions spread across.

One of the contributors having this challenge said “I have two different PINs, one with a particularPFA and second with another PFA”.

According to the contributor, he had earlier registered with one of the PFAs and when he changed employment, his new employer did not accept the first PFA he had chosen, may be for ease of remittance to their Pension Fund Custodian (PFC), and so he was compelled to open with a second PFA where the rest of the staff had their contributions domiciled”

According to the contributor, he is confused having received a notification from one of the PFAs about their plan to come for his bio-data update.

Peter Aghahowa, head, Corporate Communications at PenCom had said “we are aware of these issues and that is why we are appealing to contributors to provide their National Identification Number (NIM) and their Bank Verification numbers with their PFAs so that we can reconcile the information we have”.

According to him, no one person has two NIMs or two BVN, and that is the same thing we want to do with RSA holders.

We believe that when this exercise is completed we would have properly resolved the bio-data issues we have, so that is why we are soliciting the support of contributors and retirees, Aghahowa said.

Nicholas Emeziem, a manager with one of the PFAs said the Contributory Pension Scheme as implemented in Nigeria and many other countries is highly technology-driven; I mean cutting edge technology. “If there is total compliance with the necessary procedures and requirements, the implementation of the scheme would be a smooth sail; stopping shot of being a turnkey rendition.”

He noted however that inadequate and inappropriate data input by contributors at times render the work of pension operators extremely difficult and slows down processes. “Even contributors have been subjected to avoidable suffering because of the inadequacies and inconsistencies in data input. Some have had the payment of their entitlements unduly delayed, and consequently casting a slur on the effectiveness of the CPS.”

Emeziem stated further that there are even extreme cases, such as double registration, where workers or contributors open Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) with two different Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs). I do not know how two different accounts can be simultaneously funded. However, the on-going Bio-data update or recapturing provides an opportunity to harmonize such situations. A worker can only have one RSA, he noted

“The CPS remains the most effective and altruistic policy of the Nigerian Federal Government aimed at addressing identified and specific societal anomaly, therefore, cooperation of all stakeholders is required for it to succeed, including contributors who are expected to provide adequate and accurate information from the beginning.”

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) had in 2018 directed all Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders and retirees to update their bio-data particularly the National Identification Number (NIM) and Bank Verification numbers with their respective PFAs.

PenCom in an advertorial said “The Federal Government of Nigeria has made it mandatory that every Nigerian must have a National Identification Number (NIN). To achieve this, all data generating organisations have been directed to harmonies their database with National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), whose mandate is to implement the National Identity System in Nigeria.”

“To enable the pension industry comply, PenCom therefore directs all PFAs to update the records of their clients. Consequently, all RSA holders, both active and retired, were advised to approach their PFAs to provide their NINs and BVN, as well as their other mandatory bio-data information”.

Modestus Anaesoronye