Romania’s Government adopted on Thursday, May 23, an emergency ordinance that sets up a new entity under the control of the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF), which will take over as special administrator of the mandatory private pension funds’ assets if one or more private managers exit the market.

The ordinance comes as private pension fund managers have talked about the possibility of leaving the Romanian market because of much higher capital requirements set at the end of last year. The seven private pension fund managers, which manage some EUR 11 billion worth of assets for 7.3 million Romanian contributors, have to come up with EUR 800 million in new capital this year.

Finance minister Eugen Teodorovici said on Thursday that the Government adopted this emergency ordinance at the proposal of the Financial Supervisory Authority and that it doesn’t mean that the state wants to nationalize private pension funds, Hotnews.ro reported. He added that the Romanian authorities and private pension fund managers still have until the end of May to reach an agreement on how the rules for this market will change.

editor@romania-insider.com

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