The Emergence of Super Pension Fund Administrators and its Implication on the Pension Industry in Nigeria

In the year 2004, the Federal Government of Nigeria put in place the new contributory pension scheme for both the public and private sectors employees in Nigeria. The new contributory pension scheme was established by the Pension Reform Act, 2004. Ten years later, another pension scheme called Pension Reform Act, 2014 which was intended to improve and enhance the earlier Pension Reform Act of 2004 was fashioned out. The two Pension Reform Acts were designed to address the problems of the old pension scheme, which was characterized then by failure or inability of many public sectors to regularly pay the pension liabilities of retiring workers. As a result, the new contributory pension scheme of 2004, there was need for government to seek for Fund Managers that will properly handle the money of the contributors. That is the main reason why we have Pension Fund Administrators and Pension Fund Custodians. The Government in her wisdom then set a regulatory Agency called the National Pension Commission. Recently the Pension Fund Administrators in Nigeria are merging together to form what an authority called New Super Pension Fund Administrators. This paper examined the emergence of Super Pension Fund Administrators and its implication on the pension industry in Nigeria. Secondary data from the National Pension Commission, the naira metrics and in depth interview from some pensioners were relied upon by the author. In April 2021, the National Pension Commission compelled all the Pension Fund Administrators to increase their minimum regulatory capital base from one billion naira to five billion naira. This has resulted into merging and acquisition in the pension industry in Nigeria. The new development has helped some Pension Fund Administrators to raise more funds for their operations, hence the term Super Pension Fund Administrator. The paper concluded that the emerging new trend has positive impact on the pension industry in Nigeria.