Net units of Romanian pension funds up some 2% in August

Romanian mandatory private pension funds' net assets increased to RON 68.5 billion (EUR 14.1 bln) at the end of August, up 18.6% compared to the same month of last year.

Voluntary private pension fund's assets reached RON 2.7 bln (EUR 555 mln), up 13.9% year-on-year.

The wide discrepancy between the two pillars' capitalization shows the Romanian employees' lack of interest in the private pension system. The vast majority (over 90%) of the employees are randomly assigned instead of opting for a mandatory private pension fund (Pillar II). Even fewer Romanians opt for a voluntary private pension.

The gains of the private pension funds were severely hit in March by the plunge in the local and foreign stock exchanges, but they have recovered some of the losses in the meantime.

In August, the net unit value in five out of the seven private mandatory pension funds rose by over 2% month-on-month while the annual rise for the seven funds ranged between 2.6% and 4.4%.

Only one such fund (managed by BCR) failed to maintain the real value of the money placed by their contributors, while the highest real gain, posted by the fund Aripi managed by Generali was 1.7% year-on-year. The fund with the biggest share, managed by NN, posted nominal 3.1% growth for its units, or some 0.4% real annual growth.

When it comes to the voluntary pension funds, the monthly gains were again above 2% (with only two of the ten funds failing to meet this value), but the annual advance rarely exceeded 2%. The best performing was Raiffeisen Acumulare managed by Raiffeisen - but the 2.5% advance of the net assets per unit failed to preserve the real value of the money contributed by its subscribers as the annual inflation rate in this period was higher - 2.7%.

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