pension reform

Yesterday, Chairman of the Board of the Pension Fund of Russia (PFR) Gennady Batanov shared his plans for a number of innovations in the pension market. Market participants, having learned about these plans, came to the conclusion that the pension reform, in fact, could be given up.
Yesterday, at his first briefing, the new head of the Pension Fund told business representatives as best he could about the pension reform, which, in his words, “is moving with confidence in our country.” Gennady Batanov announced the completion of the distribution of statements on the status of personal pension accounts of citizens. “We sent 42 million letters,” said Mr. Batanov. “Thus, the distribution deadlines established by law were met for the first time.” Indeed, last year the distribution of information about pension contributions received for citizens into the pension system was repeatedly disrupted and the bulk of letters reached their recipients only in the fall.
However, it is unlikely that the current situation will be less problematic than last year. After all, so far “only 14 million letters have been delivered,” said the head of the Pension Fund of Russia, “the rest are on the way.” It is known that the post office has the right to deliver received notices within a month. And since the largest number of vacations occur in the summer, letters can again reach their recipients only in the fall.
Therefore, officials propose to postpone the deadline for completing the mailing from July 1 to October 1 from next year. In addition, it is proposed to no longer send application forms in pension envelopes for the selection of private management companies and non-state pension funds (NPFs). “We believe that sending out statements along with application forms seriously increases our mailing costs,” said Gennady Batanov. “And almost no one uses these forms. A letter with these forms weighs more than 20 grams, and the post office charges crazy money for this weight.” .
Market participants have the opposite opinion. “This actually means the end of the entire pension reform,” Alexander Pochinok, a member of the secretariat of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, told Kommersant. “Now a person receives an extract from a pension account with application forms attached, and this is a guide to action for him,” says Natalya Plugar, deputy general director of the NIKoil management company. “If the forms are not enclosed in envelopes, people, after reading the extract, will put it aside , not knowing what to do next with her."
At the same time, the Pension Fund considers the main task of the next year to be the creation of a powerful customer service for citizens insured in the state pension system. “These will be decent buildings, with computer equipment, there will even be a TV there,” said the head of the Pension Fund, “and you can also drink tea. But in general, I want more: for these to be meeting places for pensioners.”
Such intentions of the Pension Fund cause bewilderment among private companies and non-state pension funds. “A system of high-quality service is the trump card of the private system,” believes Alexey Shkrapkin, general director of the management company Kapital. “The Pension Fund of Russia, by creating such a system, is entering the field of private funds.” However, Gennady Batanov categorically denied such suspicions. “Never and under no circumstances will NPFs be our competitors,” he replied. And it’s true - the conditions of work in the compulsory pension insurance market prescribed by law for the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and NPFs, which are competitors in it, are different. In particular, income tax (24%) is withheld from contributions to non-state pension funds and from income from their placement. “Until the taxation systems of the Pension Fund and the NPF are equal, there will really be no competition between the NPF and the Pension Fund,” confirms Andrey Stolyarov, vice-president of the NPF Gazfond. “It will simply be unprofitable to transfer pension savings to private pension funds.”
LISA Kommersant-GOLIKOVA

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 121 dated 07.07.2004, p. 6

Authors:

Elizaveta Golikova

The Pension Fund of Russia does not want to compete with NPFs