Madrid, (EFE).- Social Security has awarded VidaCaixa, BBVA, Caser, Santander and Ibercaja the management of the publicly promoted employment pension funds that are expected to be operating before the end of the year and that will lower the commissions of the collective pension plans for workers.
The contract, with an estimated value of 24 million euros, will foreseeably come to fruition before the end of August, once any allegations are resolved, and will allow the start-up of 15 pension funds that have been awarded in 5 batches of 3 funds each.
The management commissions that will be charged will range between 0.10 and 0.26%, according to the offers presented by the successful bidders.
Mapfre Vida and Nationale Nederlanden also opted for the tender, which have been left out of the award, according to the minutes of the single contracting table of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations published this Friday.
Once the management has been awarded, the development of the digital platform that will unite the 15 funds and will allow the beneficiaries to access the information of their fund, in addition to favoring portability between the different funds, remains pending.
Completed the regulation of employment plans and funds
This same week, and one year after the law to promote employment pension plans came into force, the regulation on the operation of these new publicly promoted pension funds has been completed, to which the simplified employment pension plans will be attached.
Among the novelties, the reduction from two years to a maximum of one month to include new workers who join the employment pension plan and the possibility for participants to continue making contributions even if they are partially retired, as long as the company continues to make contributions.
The objective is to promote complementary professional social security, particularly through sectoral collective bargaining, as recommended by the Pact of Toledo, but also facilitating access to these pension plans for groups that until now had difficulties accessing, such as the self-employed or employees of small and medium-sized companies.
The net worth from employment pension plans has been stagnant since 2012, with 35,119 million net worth at the end of the first quarter and 1.9 million participant accounts.
This patrimony managed in the employment pension funds has lost relative weight with respect to the total pension funds since they represented 50% of the total complementary social security at the beginning of the 1990s, compared to the current 25%.
What is the difference between the employment pension plan and the employment pension fund?
The employment plan is the sectoral collective bargaining agreement that defines what part of the workers’ compensation is going to go into a private pension fund that allows them to supplement their public pension when they retire.
The publicly promoted employment pension funds are the vehicle through which this money from the workers is invested. In reality, they are not public, but private, although they are promoted and supervised by the State, with the participation of business and trade union organizations in the control commission.
In addition to the workers of companies with sectoral agreements, these pension funds may also be assigned specific employment plans for self-employed workers, workers of associations, federations and cooperatives, and public employees.
Some financial entities and professional, business and union organizations have already implemented simplified employment pension plans, such as the construction sector signed with VidaCaixa, which will also carry that of the ATA federation of self-employed workers, or like that of the union of self-employed workers UPTA with Sabadell.
It remains to be seen whether or not these plans will be attached to any of the publicly promoted employment pension funds.