TIRANA, Nov. 24 – Albania’s emerging private pension market, where only three operators are present, continued registering strong double digit growth rates in the first three quarters of this year.
A report published by the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority, shows the net asset value in the private pension market rose by about 29 percent to €8.7 million compared to the end of 2015.
Membership in the three market operators also rose by 27 percent to about 16,000 at the end of the third quarter of 2016.
Albania’s emerging private pension market registered a strong double-digit boost in 2015 apparently boosted by legal changes stripping contributions of the personal income tax, benefiting thousands of investors.
For the first time since their establishment in 2012, women overtook men in the emerging private pension funds, accounting for about 53 percent of total investors compared to only 44 percent in 2014.
The three operators invested the majority 96 percent of their assets in government securities compared to only 4 percent in deposits.
The three market operators include Raiffeisen Invest, a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank, Albanian-Austrian Sigal and Albanian-Turkish Sicred.
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.
