The Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Omolola Oloworaran, has urged Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and different business 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 industry delivered a robust 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 subsequent decade of Nigeria’s pension business
Delivering her keynote handle, Oloworaran maintained that 5 main reforms, or shifts, should happen throughout the subsequent 10 years to additional reposition Nigeria’s pension business.
- “I believe the next decade of Nigerian pensions rests on five shifts,” she stated.
The first shift, in response to her, is from payroll to inhabitants.
She highlighted that, for 20 years, the pension scheme had adopted salaries.
- “Now it must follow the worker, to the market, to the motor park, the farm cluster, and the phone in every pocket,” she added.
She stated that, via 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 business gamers to decide to opening three million extra funded energetic accounts throughout 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 known as for a shift from dedication to enforcement, including that, throughout 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 after they can not work.
- She proposed the fourth reform as a motion “from size to strength.”
She highlighted {that a} pension business holding the financial savings of tens of millions 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 business should transfer from capital to growth over the subsequent 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 overseas jurisdictions the place employees personal stakes in airports and roads, she stated these deferred wages may additionally assist construct a nation.
She defined that Nigerian financial savings may finance energy, roads, housing and enterprises that might create the subsequent era of contributors.
President Tinubu calls for better duty
Speaking to the viewers, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, known as for stronger regulatory oversight, improved compliance and better duty throughout the pension ecosystem.
- He warned in opposition to reckless funding choices, stressing that pension funds should be managed professionally and with due regard for the pursuits of contributors and retirees.
According to the President, funding choices ought to be based mostly 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 worry 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, at the very least for Awabah, the bottlenecks related to expertise 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 rather 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 business 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 indicators rising competitors throughout the sector.
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