‘We are ready to deliver service on micro pensions’

The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) is committed to ensuring that contributors and retirees enjoying exciting experience in service delivery. Premium Pensions Limited, one of the PFAs recently displayed this, when it officially commissioned its Lagos Regional Office in Ikoyi. Wilson Ideva, managing director/CEO of the Company in this interview with Modestus Anaesoronye bared his mind on the vision of the company.

For those that have seen our branches in a part of the country, we have a standard we keep. What you have seen here today is one out of the 20 branches we have established nationwide. And you have them in different sizes. The question is what does it mean for us as a company? First and foremost, we are in a retail business and pension business has to do with individuals, we are not dealing with factories or assets.

We are dealing with human beings. So, to bring our services closer to the people, we need to know the people we are working with to be able to benefit from our premium services. One of the decision we took four years ago, is that, we look at the industry, and we agreed that we need to provide a platform for people, whether you are in active services or retirees, to walk into an office and be able to carry out the services you require seamlessly and also give you a conducive environment for you to do so.

As you are aware, we currently have close to 16,000 retirees whom we are paying every month and we pay them every 19th of the month. So, far, we have paid up to N118 billion benefits to retirees and we are just counting. That is what we are set out to do and today, we are ensuring our services come closer to the people. And you know, in Lagos Island here, we have clusters of industries. Here, we have all the head offices of the banks, and most major companies.

So, this Ikoyi office is to be closer to residence of V/I, Lekki, Lagos Island and Ikoyi and to provide our services to people, so that, they can walk in here and do their business. You don’t need to go to head office, you don’t need to make calls, if you want anything, you walk in here, your statement could be printed and anything you need. You are as good as being in the head office. So, that is the statement we want to make here today and we are very glad that the head of Service of Lagos State and LASPEC DG has said it all and we have the testimony of our regulator, PenCom, when the representative of the DG said we are setting example and dictating the pace. People are always personate about their pension and I don’t blame them. After your doctor, the next person you should be closer to, is your Pension manager(PFA). That is what we are doing here today, to bring relationship closer to our clients and to provide environment for our clients to experience our premium services.

Currently, we have 20 branches and it is spread across 36 states of the federation. There is no region where we don’t have a branch.  We run a structure that is divided into nine regions.

I will start with Lagos, it’s a region and we have two branches; we have a branch in Ikoyi and another one on Allen. We also have South West region, where we have a full-fledged branch in Ibadan, Ekiti and Akure. Then, when you go to South-South as a region, we have a branch in Port-Harcourt, Benin, Asaba, Warri and Calabar.

South East is a region; in the region, we have a branch in Enugu. When you go to the North Central, we have a branch in Minna, Makurdi and Abuja. These are branches. And then, when you go to the North East, we have a branch in Yola and Bauchi. When you come to North West, we have a branch in Kaduna, Kano, Zamfara, Kebbi and Sokoto.  States.

Then, we have other 33 pension centres across the nation. We have a pension centre in every state of the country. In Lagos alone, in addition to the two branches, we have 11 pension centres. So, we are wide spread, there is no where you will not find premium pension in Nigeria. In Borno, Yobe, Taraba, we are there, because we know pension is a nationwide coverage. We also have five pension centres in the East. We have in Abakaliki, Umuahia, Nnewi, Onitsha and Awka and Owerri.

In the pension scheme, we are still talking about penetration. You will agree with me that the total coverage we are talking about in Penetration is not more than 7 million, which is too small when compared with the population of the country. And in terms of working population, we have up to 50 million workforce that are not actually in the formal sector of the economy, but are gainfully employed. Micro pension are for the artisans, SMEs, Organised Private Sectors (OPS) and so many unions. The whole idea is to ensure that pension covers these categories of people.

It will bring in employees from these areas into the scheme so that they enjoy the benefits being enjoyed by contributors today.

In no distance time, we are expecting the scheme to take off and because of that, at Premium Pension, we prides ourselves in terms of state of the art facilities to offer services. We have already put structures in place to ensure that people in the informal sector are brought into the scheme.

In doing that, we believe the system will work, not in the usual ways it works in the registration of RSA holders in the last 12 years. Via some apps, people can register from their work places because they are mobile and may not necessarily have to come to offices physically to register. We are providing a platform and we have one of the best platforms and software in the pension administration in the industry. It has the capability and capacity to accommodate unlimited number of people that comes to register and join the scheme. In addition to that, we have a very wide coverage. One of the awards we got last year is in terms of nationwide coverage. It is not actually by accident because we actually believe that this business of pension is retail and because it is retail, we need to serve the people, getting close to where these businesses are. And with that belief, all the structures we have put in place across Nigeria were done to ensure we are able to attract that sector.

As we speak, not all the states in the federation have joined the contributory pension scheme. When the representative of the Director General of PenCom spoke, he gave Lagos State government a pass mark on two fronts; that they have fully complied with all the provision of the CPS and that they are fully funded. If we are looking at states that have complied with the provisions and have regular funding, not partial funding, we probably be talking about 11 or 12 states. There is none of those states that we are not participating in. We are also in each and every one of those states and in some of them; we are even the lead PFA. So, as more and more states join the scheme, our customer base will continue to grow because we intend to be a participant in each of those states. As the Lagos State Head of Service did said, when they did the first short listing, by some stroke of accident, Premium Pension was not part of it, but they were not comfortable, until they brought us on board.

Thank God, last year is gone, that was the year of recession. This year, we expect things to improve; the governments at all levels and even the IMF have been saying that. As things improve and as state governments are able to pay salaries’ which means, they will now be able to afford to pay pension, we expect more states to come on board. As they come on board, premium will continue to open more offices. Once a state comes on board and we target that we will be able to get 10,000 to 20,000 additional employees into our state accounts, then, we need to have a fully-fledged office to be able to service them with internet access so that they can get their PIN immediately and we will be able to give them their statements, we need to have call centres so that they can be able to reach us at any particular time and we need to have enough staff on the ground to be able to attend to those we want to serve. And with this, we are providing employment, even for the indigene of the state.

It is true that some businesses are closing shops and some businesses are opening, that is the reality of life. In life, you have to determine what you want and how you want to go about it.

We are in an challenging times, whether you are in pension business or any other business. But we also know that we need to start setting structures and the industry is just about 11 years plus. So, there is a lot of structures that need to be set up and we have to do that in spite of the challenging times we are going through. It is part of the decision of the board to have confidence in this country and believe in this country, believing the challenges we are going through, we will be able to overcome.

Just last week, to recall, Edo State published the names of PFAs it will be using and I am sure you know Premium Pension is also part of it and as we speak, we are carrying out awareness for the employees allotted to us and registration commences.

Most states come to us and we help them set up pension scheme in their states, give free advice and help them set up structures. One of the states in the North Central asked for one of our staff to be deployed to their ministry to help them set up pension scheme in their states and we are very glad to do so. It shows the confidence they have in us, that people have interest what we are doing and what we intend to do. We partner with the state and any states we are, we provide enabling environment as good corporate citizens. We contribute by providing employment for the citizens of the states as well as generate revenue through payment of tax to the state government.