The open non-state pension fund “Sokrat-Future” has begun activity in providing its non-state pension service. The objective of the pension fund’s activities is the formation of pension savings for financial pension payments to the fund’s participants and their heirs. Persons making payments into the fund may be the participants themselves, who make contributions into the pension fund for their own benefit or for the benefit of their family members (children, parents, spouses), as well as employers of the fund’s participants or the labor unions to which participants belong. Fund participants (pension beneficiaries) may be any physical person, independent of their place of dwelling or work. They may be citizens of Ukraine, foreigners and internally displaced persons (those who are without citizenship of any country). The Center for Pension Provision, which is the fund’s professional administrator, has already begun to conclude pension contracts with beneficiaries regarding this fund, with pension contributions for participants’ benefits starting to be paid out already this month.
The first contributors to the fund were physical persons, among whom are private entrepreneurs, associates of the “Sokrat” Asset Management Company and other organizations, as well as investors in the series of funds operated by the “Sokrat” Asset Management Company. The fund’s programs for physical persons allow contributors to change the size and period of their investments at their own discretion, in addition to the directions for providing participants and their loved ones with the pension, which is paid independently from their earnings or support they receive from other sources, including the state.
“An interesting particularity of the current stage in the fund’s work is the significant number of participants that are under 30 years old, who are choosing a lengthy payment period – of 25 to 40 years – for their pension payments,” underlined Alexander Tkach, the Chairman of the Fund’s Council. “The financial schedule demonstrates that even with a relatively small and financially insignificant sum towards their monthly contribution (from UAN 50 to 100), the pension earnings for such participants, accumulated from the moment of entering the pension, will be quite substantial”.
Apart from the existence of ready-to-sign pension contracts, contributions made on the part of the employer will be to the employees’ advantage. Pension contributions depend on the enterprise’s gross expenditures and are included in a worker’s compensation package with tax benefits applied, which allows the achievement of economic resources in comparison to expenses on pay increases. Employers may change the size of contributions and the frequency of payments depending on a worker’s salary, experience, and age. This is serious motivation for holding lengthy employment at that particular enterprise. In the case that this worker partakes in that enterprise’s pension program with his own earnings, the sum of his pension earnings may expand by at least two times thanks to contributions made by the employer.
“The involvement of company personnel and our clients in the fund’s pension program advances an upgrading of requirements for managing these stocks, since this is the financial foundation of their future pensions. In aims of growing the pension resources of the fund’s participants and protecting these earnings from inflation, the “Sokrat” Asset Management Company will invest the fund’s pension contributions in reliable and lucrative instruments,” commented Grigory Ovcharenko, the Executive Director of the “Sokrat” Asset Management Company.