Current pension funds could be transformed into asset management companies: Central Bank Governor

“The National Bank’s position is that the current pension funds as they are now should be transformed into assets management companies”, Profinance.kz reports, citing Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko as announcing January 25. “Nobody suggests taking away all the assets from the current pension funds (…) The Government is to hire an assessment company to fairly and independently evaluate the assets so that they could be bought out later on at a fair market value”, Mr. Marchenko believes. “I believe neither the National Bank nor the Government should be responsible for valuation (…) there should be an unbiased valuation (…) it’s a delicate issue”, Mr. Marchenko emphasized. “Objective valuation is badly needed so that there would be no allegations that the Government has taken over the funds (…) the point is not to close down the current pension funds. The National Bank’s suggestion is to enable them to keep on working in the newly created environment”, Mr. Marchenko said. The issue of voluntary and corporate savings remains open. “It’s clear all the pension funds will be merged when it comes to obligatory pension savings (…) however, if someone has deposited voluntary savings and wants to keep them with a private fund, maybe such a feature of pension funds should be retained”.