By Bisi Bamishe
National Pension Commission (PenCom), disbursed N117.89 billion as retirement benefits to retirees in the fourth quarter of 2023, representing 22.88% increase as against N95.94 billion recorded in the third quarter of 2023.
According to PenCom, the increase was as a result of higher lump-sum and annuity premium payments made during the period under review.
The data obtained from PenCom quarterly report, showed that the Commission approved 6,592 requests, while six were rejected due to wrong computations of lump sum or monthly pensions.
On programme withdrawal mode, the Commission said that Pension Fund Administrators submitted 6,598 requests for retirees to draw down on their pension through Programmed Withdrawal mode during the period.
Out of the 6,592 retirees whose benefits were approved, 2,860 were from the private sector, while 3,732 were from the public sector. A lump sum of N34.38 billion was approved for the 6,592 retirees, while their monthly pension was N488.19 million.
Retirement Savings Account (RSA), membership also grew with 88,213 new RSAs registered and associated PINs issued to employees across sectors.
A breakdown of the data shows that Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers maintained a dominant market share of 24 per cent with 21,212 contributors registered, followed by Access Pensions Limited, which had 19.9% with 17,573 new registered. ARM Pension Managers Ltd, Leadway Pensure PFA Ltd and Premium Pension Ltd followed with 9.4%, 8.1%, and 6% of the new registrations during the quarter respectively. Consequently, the top five (5) PFAs collectively held about 67.39% while the bottom five (5) PFAs recorded an aggregate of 5.38% of the 88,213 new RSAs registered in Q4:2023.
