The managing director/CEO of Veritas Glanvills Pension Limited, Godson Ukpevo, has applauded bold regulatory reforms in the Nigeria pension scheme, which has led to a significant turning point that is now reshaping the industry’s landscape..
Under the new leadership at the National Pension Commission(PenCom), some bold reforms relating to the administration of retirement benefits and the remittance of pension contributions have been launched.
Ukpevo noted that, “these reforms mark a significant shift towards a more robust and efficient pension administration system in the country. The reforms will certainly bring a lot of salutary effect and benefit to CPS contributors and retirees”
While applauding the new director general of the commission, Omolola Oloworaran for being the chief driver of the changes by demonstrating uncommon commitment to an efficient and technology-driven pension administration system, he noted that, one of the major changes just introduced is the granting of full authority to Pension Fund Administrators(PFAs) to process and approve retirement benefit applications.
The new arrangement which takes effect from June 1, 2025, empowers PFAs to process pension payments like Programmed Withdrawal, Temporary Loss of Employment benefits, Pension Mortgage, and Voluntary Contribution benefits, among others.
The PFAs, he said, are, however, required to secure approval from the Commission for death benefit applications and payments relating to depleted RSAs, saying, prior to this new development, Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) were required to obtain approval from PenCom for various benefits applications.
The second major development, he emphasised, is the engagement of 9 approved Payment Solution Service Providers (PSSPs) for remitting pension contributions of workers to their Retirement Savings Accounts(RSAs), adding that, this initiative aims to resolve the persistent issue of industry-wide unreconciled contributions running into billions of Naira.
“Employers will now have the option to choose from any of the nine Payment Solution Service Providers that have been approved by PenCom for remitting pension contributions and uploading pension schedules of their workers,” he said.
Applauding the new payment system which allows for only compliant remittances with matching RSA Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and PFA codes, he noted that, it also introduces real-time error-checking protocols and various gateways for instant online payments.
PenCom has set 1st June 2025 as the deadline for full compliance and from this date, all other platforms will be disabled, leaving only the approved PSSPs as employers are required to adopt the new process and ensure that their pension contributions are remitted through the approved PSSPs.
