Romania’s second pension pillar will not be nationalized, says minister of finance

The minister of finance, Viorel Stefan, rejected the rumors regarding the potential nationalization of the second private pillar of the Romaanian pensions system.

Stefan claimed that such a decision would be an “aberration”.

“This information does not have any kind of background, of any kind. No political, economic, financial, budgetary reason to make such a decision that is literally an aberration in relation to the operation of the pensions Pillar II. So Pillar II is a successful financial scheme. The administrators of the fund record a very good yield, the number of participants in this scheme reaches close to 7 million citizens,” said the minister.

He added that the transfer quota from the public pension fund to the pillar that is privately managed has remained at 5.1 percent, similar to last year.

Stefan suggested that he will talk with the Financial Supervision Authority (ASF) to make sure that asset managers understand that there are no nationalization plans.

NN Pensii, the biggest private mandatory pensions fund in Romania, notified its clients on the risk of nationalization of the second pension pillar. The company said that in the past few weeks this topic was debated in the country.

NN’s assets in Romania amount to EUR 2.68 billion as of February.

The president of the financial-budget committee in Parliament, MP Eugen Teodorovici, dubbed as “fake news” the information regarding the potential nationalization of the second pension pillar.

NN said in a statement that the message submitted to its clients did not serve as a warning. It added that it acknowledged the fact that the government supported the private pensions system. The company said it has 1.9 million clients on the local market.