Armenia`s economy minister, C-Quadrat Ampega reps discuss development  of Armenia`s capital market 

ArmInfo. Armenian Minister of Economy Gevorg Papoyan received Vice President of the pension fund C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia Andreas Wimmer and member of the board Carlos Mendez de Vigo. Deputy Minister Sevak Mikaelyan was also present at the meeting, the press service of the RA Ministry of Economy reports.

During the meeting, a number of issues related to the development of  the financial market and investment environment in Armenia were  discussed.

The parties touched upon the activities of C-Quadrat Ampega and the  performance of managed funds.

The innovative features of the pension calculator and steps to  improve pension accounting were also presented.

The interlocutors addressed the topic of increasing the financial  literacy of society through educational programs.

The parties emphasized the importance of the company's approaches  aimed at further developing the capital market and the financial  ecosystem of Armenia.

The implementation of the multi-stage funded 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 pay-as-you-go pension system is in  effect). Since July 1, 2018, the mandatory component of the funded  pension has come into force. 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 Asset Management. 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%). 

According to Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia Armen  Nurbekyan, as of November 25, the volume of assets managed by  mandatory pension funds in Armenia reached approximately 1 trillion  drams.  The Regulator recently proposed amendments to the law "On  Accumulative Pensions" that will ease some restrictions on pension  fund investments and expand opportunities to directly invest in  private businesses (Private Equity). This is expected to increase the  share of investments in shares from 25% to 35% for conservative  funds.