The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Oscar Onyema is seeking to have rules on the investment of pension-fund relaxed to attract funds and boost the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Currently the Pension Funds placed a restriction on the amount of investable funds in the Stock market by Pension Fund Administrators.For example, pension funds cannot invest in companies with less than 5 years of Financial History.
Most of Pencom’s regulations are designed to protect investors, but investors are becoming more sophisticated. We are working very closely with them, the National Assembly, and other appropriate bodies to highlight areas where we believe there is a need for enhancement. Onyema
South Africa’s pension assets were worth about 3 trillion rand ($307 billion) by the second quarter, according to Bloomberg calculations made using Reserve Bank data, while the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s all-share index gained 15 per cent this year.
Ghana which ended the state pension fund’s monopoly on retirement savings, had assets of 1.06 billion cedis ($484 million) last year, according to the country’s pensions regulator. Ghana’s Composite Index is Africa’s best performer this year, jumping 75 per cent.