site.btaSupplementary Retirement Insurers Association's Miltenova: Interest in Pension Funds Increasing, Supplementary Pensions Growing

In an interview for BTA, Bulgarian Association of Supplementary Retirement Insurance Companies President Evelina Miltenova said that ever more ensured persons have been returning from the National Social Security Institute state pillar to pension funds in the last year or two. Over BGN 15 million were transferred as at December 2023, according to data of the National Revenue Agency.

The funds for pension payment were successfully launched in late 2021 and have since been carrying out three main types of pension payments: lifetime pensions, payment in installments, and one-time payment. During the period in question, nearly 1,900 lifetime pensions and some 15,000 contracts for payment in installments have been made, she said. Close to 8,000 people received one-time payments from 2021 to June 30, 2023, she added.

The amount of lifetime pensions paid in installments (around BGN 255 at present) has been growing. In the payment in installments option only, the funds pay insured persons some BGN 400 a month on average. 

The Association is working on a project for a national accounting standard, which will give greater stability to second-pillar pensions, ease the work of report-makers, and improve the understanding of insured persons and pensioners, Miltenova told BTA.

According to her, the main challenges facing pension companies are geopolitical and market risks as well as the worsening demographic situation.