ArmInfo. "Doesn't the investment risk for pension assets of beneficiaries of Armenian pension funds increase with the expansion of the opportunity to directly invest in private business (Private Equity)?" Artur Khachatryan, a member of the opposition Hayastan faction, asked Armen Nurbekyan, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia, at a meeting of the National Assembly's relevant committee on November 25 during the discussion of the relevant draft law.
The Central Bank is proposing amendments to the law "On Accumulative Pensions", which will allow easing some restrictions on pension fund investments and increasing the share of investments in shares from 25% to 35% for conservative funds. According to the calculations of the Central Bank of Armenia, this may increase the average expected return by 0.7% per annum over 30 years. In addition, the funds will be able to invest up to 10% of their funds directly in the real sector of the economy, including infrastructure projects. , - Artur Khachatryan asked.
Nurbekyan noted that today the volume of assets managed by mandatory pension funds of Armenia has reached approximately 1 trillion drams. And this is a very serious figure. The volume continues to grow at a very high rate, he noted.
, - said the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia. As for the geography of investments, approximately 65% are invested in Armenia and, accordingly, in national currency (according to the law, 60% or more of the fund's assets must be invested in Armenian drams (AMD), the rest is recommended to be invested in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - ed.). Of these, 42% are investments in RA government bonds.
The Central Bank agrees that it is not worth "increasing the risk of investments in an unclear way". At the same time, according to Armen Nurbekyan, the risk category of investments in Private Equity remains within the same 10%. "With only one difference - if earlier, before the amendments, we had investments through some fund, now we allow direct investments. That is, here we do not see additional risks, we are simply expanding the investment toolkit within the framework of the same risk", - he explained. Let us recall that in 2010, the RA Law "On Accumulative Pensions" was adopted, and the implementation of the multi-stage accumulative pension system started on January 1, 2014. Since July 1, 2018, the NPS has become mandatory for all citizens of Armenia born after January 1, 1974 (for citizens born before January 1, 1974, the distributive pension system is in effect). The mandatory component of the funded pension came into force on July 1, 2018. Citizens born before 1974 can also become participants in the system on a voluntary basis.
Since the introduction of the system and up to the present day, there have been only two pension fund managers in Armenia who received licenses from the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia to manage pension funds within the framework of the ONPS in 2013: C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia and Amundi-ACBA. The shareholders of the first are the Austrian investment company C-Quadrat Investment AG and the German Talanx Asset Management. In terms of assets (around 150 billion euros), Talanx Asset Management GmbH is one of the largest insurance and financial groups in Europe, represented in 150 countries. The shareholders of the second are the French company Amundi (51%), which manages assets in excess of 2.2 trillion euros in 35 countries, and the Armenian Acba Bank (49%).
Over the past 10 years, Armenia has revised the amount of monthly payments on them several times: since 2023, monthly mandatory payments from a working citizen amounted to 5% of the salary, and the same amount is contributed to the savings account of the participant in the system by the state. But if the salary of a participant in the ONPS exceeds 500 thousand drams per month, the state finances savings contributions in the amount of no more than 25 thousand drams. A maximum limit has also been set for savings: in the amount of 15 times the minimum wage. That is, savings are not made from the part of the participant's salary exceeding 1 million 125 thousand drams, 112 thousand 500 drams is the maximum amount that a participant can accumulate. The application of the latter restriction can be refused by contacting the tax authority. Recently, the head of the parliamentary commission on financial and credit issues, Tsovinar Vardanyan, stated that it is reasonable to reduce the share of the state in the accumulation of pension assets for a number of citizens.
Management companies offer three investment models: stable income, conservative and balanced. According to the rules, the stable income model assumes that assets cannot be invested in equity securities and derivative instruments based on them; according to the terms of the conservative model, the weight of equity securities and derivative instruments acquired for the purpose of hedging them in the fund's assets cannot exceed 25%; according to the rules of the balanced model, the weight of equity securities and derivative instruments acquired for the purpose of hedging them in the fund's assets cannot exceed 50%. Which of the specified strategies is used to place funds, the participant of the system decides for himself, and his transition from one model to another is free once within one year. Those who did not initially make this choice, the system automatically places in a medium, moderate risk fund, that is, conservative.
