Pension fund assets up 4% in February to 4.7 billion lei

Mandatory pension funds (pillar II) managed 4.7 billion lei (1.1 billion euros) in assets at the end of February, 4% more than in the previous month and almost 2 billion lei more than in the corresponding period of last year, reveal the data of the Private Pension System Supervisory Commission (CSSPP).

The asset increase maintained the steady pace of the previous months, even though the contribution transferred to mandatory funds remained 2.5% of the gross salary of any contributor; it is set to go up to 3% of the gross salary this month.

The assets managed by the pillar 2 funds exceeded 1 billion euros in December 2010 and players on the market estimate the value will increase to 1.6 billion euros by the end of the year.

There were about 5.24 million employees contributing to a mandatory pension fund at the end of last month, about 30,000 more than in January. The number of contributors has risen by about 250,000 people over the past year.