The Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Omolola Oloworaran, has urged Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and different trade stakeholders to open three million extra funded Retirement Savings Accounts inside one year.
Oloworaran disclosed this on Thursday on the National Pension Conference and Awards in Abuja, attended by Nairametrics and held as a part of the continuing National Pension Week 2026.
The name comes after Nigeria’s pension trade delivered a powerful efficiency in the primary 9 months (9M) of 2025, with a number of Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) recording spectacular common returns throughout the 4 Retirement Savings Account (RSA) fund classes.
Roadmap for the following decade of Nigeria’s pension trade
Delivering her keynote deal with, Oloworaran maintained that 5 main reforms, or shifts, should happen inside the subsequent 10 years to additional reposition Nigeria’s pension trade.
- “I believe the next decade of Nigerian pensions rests on five shifts,” she stated.
The first shift, in keeping with her, is from payroll to inhabitants.
She highlighted that, for 20 years, the pension scheme had adopted salaries.
- (*3*) she added.
She stated that, by the Personal Pension Plan (PPP), accredited pension brokers and different initiatives, the Commission would attain Nigerians the place they’re.
To obtain this, she disclosed that she had requested trade gamers to decide to opening three million extra funded lively accounts inside the subsequent year.
- “And the good news: the owners of all our pension fund administrators have committed to that. Not registrations, 3 million funded active accounts, new accounts. Because an empty account is a statistic, but a funded account is a future and might just be the beginning of planning the security of that future,” she added.
The second reform is from financial savings to safety, guaranteeing that no Nigerian who has served and labored for the nation and saved for retirement ought to develop previous in need.
According to her, that promise will materialise in November, 2026 when President Bola Tinubu launches the Pension Security Initiative.
She additionally referred to as for a shift from dedication to enforcement, including that, inside the subsequent decade, the Commission would use each energy conferred on it by the Pension Reform Act to get well what’s owed to employees.
She suggested each employer in Nigeria to see pensions not as deductions however as a declaration that the individuals who construct their companies won’t be deserted once they can now not work.
- She proposed the fourth reform as a motion “from size to strength.”
She highlighted {that a} pension trade holding the financial savings of thousands and thousands of Nigerians should be sturdy sufficient to guard them.
She reiterated that each pension fund administrator and custodian should full recapitalisation by June 30, 2027.
She proposed that the pension trade should transfer from capital to improvement over the following decade.
- “Pension money is not government money. It is not industry money. It is the deferred wages of Nigerians—hard-working Nigerian workers,” she stated.
Drawing classes from international jurisdictions the place employees personal stakes in airports and roads, she stated these deferred wages might additionally assist construct a nation.
She defined that Nigerian financial savings might finance energy, roads, housing and enterprises that may create the following technology of contributors.
President Tinubu calls for higher accountability
Speaking to the viewers, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, referred to as for stronger regulatory oversight, improved compliance and higher accountability throughout the pension ecosystem.
- He warned towards reckless funding selections, stressing that pension funds should be managed professionally and with due regard for the pursuits of contributors and retirees.
According to the President, funding selections needs to be primarily based on rigorous assessments of dangers and returns.
He charged PenCom to maintain its function as a forward-looking regulator by imposing related legal guidelines and requirements with out concern or favour whereas guaranteeing that pension fund directors and different operators remained accountable.
Accredited pension brokers should step up — Tunji Andrews
Speaking with Nairametrics, the CEO of Awabah, Tunji Andrews, stated that, a minimum of for Awabah, the bottlenecks related to know-how and entry had been addressed.
According to him, what’s now required of licensed accredited pension brokers and different stakeholders is critical work in elevating consciousness to encourage extra Nigerians to hitch the pension system.
- He added that, whereas the regulator remained on the centre of the pension ecosystem, there was way more his colleagues wanted to do to “meet up to what the regulator has put as benchmark for us.”
He urged accredited pension brokers to step up their efforts to satisfy the requirements set by the regulator.
Competition intensifies amongst pension fund directors
Among Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), Nairametrics beforehand reported that high 5 operators accounted for 54.41% of new Retirement Savings Account (RSA) registrations in the primary quarter of 2026, down from 62.11% in the earlier quarter.
Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers led the trade with 25,024 new RSA registrations, representing 17.47% of the overall.
Other main operators included:
- AccessARM Pensions – 10.63%
- FCMB Pensions – 10.15%
- TangerineAPT Pensions – 9.65%
- Trustfund Pensions – 6.73%
PenCom had famous that TangerineAPT’s emergence among the many high 5 operators alerts rising competitors inside the sector.
