TIRANA, Feb. 11 – Albania’s Credins Bank, one of the four largest commercial banks operating in Albania, has acquired a majority 75 percent majority stake in Sicred pension fund for undisclosed amount, the Competition Authority has announced.
The emerging private pension market has been rapidly growing in the past few years.
The voluntary private pension market holds less than 0.1 percent of financial system assets and aims at supplementing pensions offered under the government’s obligatory scheme.
Net asset value in the emerging private pension market rose to around 581 million lek (Euro 4.1 million) at the end of the third quarter of 2014, registering a 33 percent increase compared to the end of 2013, according to data published by the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority.
Meanwhile, total membership in the three operating pension funds, Sigal Life Pension, Raiffeisen Pensions, and Sicred Pensions rose by 6.9 percent to 8,432.
In its 2015 fiscal package, government says contributions in the emerging private pension market will be stripped of personal income tax benefiting more than 8,000 members of the private pension funds.
