Few change their pension accounts after change of employer

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Norwegian workers rarely change the pension accounts they received from former employers. Almost NOK 65 billion is therefore based on the original savings profile.

 

Norwegian employees had NOK 67.8 billion in pension capital certificates at the end of the third quarter last year, Finansavisen writes. According to the figures, which originate from Finans Norge, this amounts to the retirement pension workers from previous employers in the private sector. Very often, there are schemes with high administration fees and management fees. The share of the invested funds is usually 50 percent.

Although for four years, from 2014 it has been possible to move these accounts from one supplier to another, or to change the composition and risk of the savings profile, yet very few do this.

Only pension capital certificates worth NOK 3.7 billion have been moved. This accounts for about 5 percent of what employers have saved for their former employees.

“The low awareness of pension capital certificates is due to the fact that this is money that previous employers have saved for each individual, and not money an individual has saved from their own pocket,” says Bjørn Erik Sættem in Nordnett to the newspaper.

The standard agreement for most accounts is a 50 percent interest rate. In Storebrand, which together with DNB and Nordea has 74 percent of this market, it is stated that those who change the profile of the agreements are going for higher shares.

“We would like to see more people make their own choices,” says economist Knut Dyre Haug in Storebrand.

In most cases, pension funds can be transferred free of charge between different suppliers.

 

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today