Nigeria’s Pension Fund Assets Surge to N17.658 Trillion, PenCom Report Shows

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has released data showing that Nigeria’s pension fund assets surged to N17.658 trillion as of October 31, 2023. This represents a significant increase of about 1.78% compared to the N17.349 trillion reported in September 2023. The details of this growth were outlined in PenCom’s monthly report for October 2023.

The report indicates that the total pension fund net asset value rose to N17.658 trillion in June, up from N17.349 trillion reported in the previous month. A breakdown of the data reveals that investments in Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) securities continued to dominate portfolio allocation, accounting for approximately N11.419 trillion or 64.67% of the total net asset value (NAV). Additionally, pension funds allocated N1.881 trillion to Corporate Debt Securities and N1.688 trillion to Money Market Instruments. Investments in ordinary shares of local companies also experienced a 3.17% increase, reaching N1.430 trillion from N1.386 trillion in September.

In terms of fund allocation, Fund II, the default Retirement Savings Account (RSA) Fund under the Multi-Fund Structure, maintained the largest share of the Active RSA Funds allocation with N7.581 trillion or 43% of the total fund NAV. Fund III also saw an increase of 1.62%, rising from N4.754 trillion to N4.831 trillion, maintaining its position as the second-largest fund allocation. Meanwhile, the number of RSA members for October 2023 rose by 1.15% to 10,140,929 from 10,025,314 members in July 2023.

The report also highlights the significant growth in pension fund assets, which rose from N14.9 trillion in December 2022 to N17.7 trillion in October 2023, representing a substantial N2.8 trillion increase or an 18.79% rise. This growth is attributed to a surge in pension fund contributions and an increase in portfolio values. For instance, the net asset values of FGN Securities rose from N9.64 trillion in 2022 to N11.19 trillion as of October 2023.

Source: Nairametrics