RAIFFEISEN BANK offers voluntary pensions to its Romanian employees
ROMANIA. RAIFFEISEN BANK, one of the largest five banks in Romania, decided to offer voluntary private pensions (3rd pillar pension) for its 5,400 employees, the fund chosen being the voluntary pension fund managed by RAIFFEISEN Asset Management. At the end of October 2008, the freshly-launched "RAIFFEISEN Acumulare" voluntary pension fund had 5,449 participants and net assets of 1 RON mn. (0.3 EUR mn.).
Thus, RAIFFEISEN becomes the second Romanian bank to pay contributions for voluntary pensions for its employees, after BCR, Romania's largest bank, owned by ERSTE Bank Group, did the same one year ago. BCR's employees' voluntary pensions are in "BCR Prudent" fund, managed by BCR Life Insurance (now a member of Vienna Insurance Group).
Romania's voluntary pensions market consisted of 7 pension companies providing 9 funds, 135,900 participants and net assets of EUR 18 mn. at the end of October 2008. The market was launched in June 2007.