Central Bank Governor on the upside and downside of the suggested single pension fund

“As it often happens in an economy, any decision has its positive and negative sides”, Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko announced January 25, Profinance.kz reports. “Enticing depositors away from one pension fund to another had an adverse effect on the overall efficiency of the pension system. If there is a single pension fund, no enticing will take place (…) the service fee will be decreased”, Mr. Marchenko said when commenting on the upside of the suggested single pension fund. “Besides, the single pension fund will enable to solve another problem (…) some pension funds, especially minor funds, used to close deals with affiliated companies. Pension funds invested their money into defaulting affiliated companies … in some cases the defaulting companies were linked to shareholders of pension funds (…) if there is a single pension fund managed directly by the Government or by the National Fund, there will be no deals closed with affiliated companies”. “At the same time, lack of competition is a negative factor (…) it’s hard to predict what an impact this factor will have over time. However, different pension funds relied on different valuation methods, with some of them overstating the yield and thus trying to take away other pension funds’ depositors (…) now there will be no such moves”. January 23 at a sitting in his Astana-based residence, President Nazarbayev suggested launching a single pension fund. According to him, such consolidation under the supervision of the National Bank would enable to more effectively manage people’s savings.