In early May, in Tallinn, Estonia, the results of the competition for the Good Practice Award for Europe 2022 from the International Social Security Association (ISSA) were summed up. “The ISSA Good Practice Award is an honorary recognition for hard work and progress in improving the way social security institutions work to achieve excellence in this area. The award recognizes excellence in social security management by ISSA member organizations and provides a unique opportunity for institutions to present their important administrative initiatives and innovative solutions to a global audience. It is worth emphasizing that since its launch in 2008, over 1,200 applications have been submitted for the best practice award, which have demonstrated an impressive range of operational and administrative achievements of member organizations in all regions”, emphasized the Association.
This year, one of the winners of the competition was the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund Joint Stock Company, which received a Certificate of Merit with Special Mention for the implementation of the Corporate Strategy for 2017-2021, namely for success in “extending pension coverage via equal access, information and communication technology, and raising public awareness”. Representatives of the UAPF participated in the online award ceremony, the award was presented to the representative of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Republic of Estonia Meiram Mutashev.
It should be noted that in total, within the framework of the 2022 competition, 96 applications were submitted from 32 ISSA member organizations from 20 countries of the European region, and it was UAPF that received such an honorable award.
Recall that the UAPF Development Strategy for 2017-2021 was aimed at expanding coverage and improving the financial literacy of the population by improving the quality of service and diversifying service channels. To achieve success, UAPF has optimized its activities in accordance with the best world practices, including the recommendations and guidelines of the ISSA itself.
One of the key areas for the development and improvement of the quality of pension services, identified by the Strategy, was to ensure equal access of participants to pension services through the development of direct, electronic and remote service formats. At the same time, over the past years, the UAPF has expanded the list of pension services provided in electronic format through the UAPF website and mobile application, the e-gov portal and mobile application, appeals through social networks, etc. At the moment, over 93% of UAPF services are provided in a convenient and operational electronic format. As is known, contributors and recipients, without leaving their homes, can use almost all the Fund's services literally in a matter of minutes.
The rapid growth and popularization of electronic services has reduced the operating costs of UAPF. The number of branches was reduced from 231 to 176 offices, staffing decreased by 35%.
Do not forget that over the five years of the implementation of the Development Strategy, the volume of pension savings increased by 6.4 trillion tenge, that is, it almost doubled, amounting to 13.1 trillion tenge (16.1% of GDP) as of January 1, 2022. The average annual growth of pension savings over this period outstrips GDP growth. There is an increase in both pension savings themselves and pension contributions, investment income, pension payments, etc. Average annual return on pension assets for 2017-2021 amounted to 9.6% with an average annual inflation of 6.7%. The indicator of cumulative return since the introduction of the accumulative pension system (APS) as of January 1, 2022 exceeded the level of cumulative inflation by 1.2 times (681.13% and 546.77%, respectively).
During the period from 2017 to 2021, the number of participants in the accumulative pension system (unique contributors and beneficiaries under the CPC) increased by 1.9 million people, or 20.9%, and amounted to 10.9 million people. The total number of individual pension saving accounts (IPSA) for all types of contributions as of January 1, 2022 amounted to 11.5 million units. The average annual growth rate of IPSA for the period was 4%. By the way, in 2021, the number of active participants in the APS (whose IPSA received at least one OPV during the year) amounted to 7 million people, or 79.5% of the employed population, which, according to the Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms The Republic of Kazakhstan is 8.8 million people.
Governing pension systems, expanding coverage, increasing the financial literacy of the public and building trust is a complex and complex process. In the future, UAPF will continue to build a productive dialogue with all stakeholders, putting the interests of contributors above all.
Ref Data. The International Social Security Association (ISSA), founded in 1927, has 350 members from 150 countries. The ISSA is an international organization that brings together important national administrations and agencies involved in social security. The ISSA disseminates information, conducts research, provides advice and offers its members a platform to shape dynamic social security policies around the world.
The main objective of the ISSA is to promote dynamic social security as a social dimension of the world's globalization process by maintaining a high level of social security administration. The ISSA advocates a social security that can adapt and use innovative approaches to develop and implement a global perspective that is coherent, focused on active operations and future policies and programs to secure access to the social protection system. UAPF has become a member of this Association since May 1, 2015.
The UAPF was established on August 22, 2013 on the basis of GNPF APF JSC. The UAPF founder and shareholder is the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan represented by the State Institution “Committee of State Property and Privatization” of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan. UAPF pension assets are managed by the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan. From January 1, 2016, the functions for developing proposals to improve the management of pension assets were transferred to the National Fund Management Council. In accordance with the pension legislation, the UAPF attracts compulsory pension contributions, compulsory occupational pension contributions, voluntary pension contributions, pension benefits, individual accounting of pension accumulations and benefits, provides the contributor (beneficiary) with information on the status of his pension accumulations (for more information visit www.enpf.kz)