Pension funds grow 5.6% in 2020

The volume of pension funds under management exceeded €23Bn at the end of 2020 according to the latest quarterly report released by the Portuguese regulator for the insurance and pension funds industry ASF.

Insurance and pension fund products were responsible for the management of over €23Bn in 2020 according to the regulator headed by Margarida Corrêa de Aguiar.
The ASF said, however, that contributions for pension funds suffered a 20.3% fall on 2019.
This fall is explained by the need in 2019 for members to make extraordinary contributions to meet an increase in responsibilities resulting from a change in preconditions for defined benefit pension plans.
At the same time, the benefits paid saw an increase of 4% according to the ASF. The organisation also revealed that in the same period, the number of pension funds under management went from 232 to 234 following the setting up of four funds (three PPR funds and a closed fun) and the extinction of two closed pension funds.
According to the ASF, in December 2020, “investment portfolios in funds and pensions were mostly made up of debt bonds (51%), followed by investment funds (33%) with property (7%), bank deposits (5%), and shares (4%) continuing to be the categories which have a lesser weighting.
In November last year, the ASF announced that it has doubled up on requirements to provide information for pension fund management entities after changes to disclosure requirements made by the European Central Bank (ECB).
According to a regulation published in the State circular Diário da República, the entity explains the BCE “decided to define a number of statistical reporting requirements applicable to pension funds, with the aim of providing the ECB with adequate statistics regarding the financial activities of the pension funds sub-sector in EU Member-States whose currency is the euro,” to assist it in carrying out its policies, among other things.”