Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon, a journalist with Legit.ng, has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

In 2021, the National Pension Commission (PenCom) introduced an annual transfer window, allowing pension contributors to switch their Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) if they desire.

This allows the Retirement savings account (RSA) holders to change PFAs if they find another that offers better terms and services.

A recent report has shown that 27,701 Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders have taken advantage of the 2025 transfer window to dump their PFAs for other options.

This change of RSAs also transferred a total of N191.12 billion in funds from the fund administrators to the new PFA.

The transfers took place within the transfer window that ended March 31, 2025, with the RSA holders meeting the PenCom requirements for the transfer.

PenCom report showed that this figure was 19.27% higher than the 23,226 RSA holders that initiated transfers in the previous quarter.

The report reads:

“This represents a 4,475 or 19.27per cent increase in RSA transfers when compared to the 23,226 RSA holders that transferred N141.87billion in Q4, 2024.

“Overall, a total of 368,911 RSA holders have transferred N1.77 trillion from one PFA to another from the commencement of the RSA transfer process in 2021 to Q1:2025.’’

The idea behind introducing a transfer window was to allow Retirement savings account holders the flexibility of switching fund managers.

Note that the PFAs are currently taking advantage of the high interest in FG securities to increase their investments.

The transfer window also puts PFAs on their toes to deliver excellent customer service and good returns, as they understand that they could still lose their customers to competitors in the next transfer window.

One pension contributor, Mrs. Sophia Arinze, told Legit.ng that even though she had not switched PFAs so far, she would be glad to do that if she got a better offering.

She said:

“This is retirement funds we are talking about. If another PFA is offering higher returns and I hear about it, I would be happy to switch over. My current PFA sends me a statement of account every month, and I think that transparency is good too so that I can monitor the growth."

In related development, PenCom has also revealed the amount paid out to RSA contributors through the Programmed Withdrawal (PW) and Retiree Life Annuity (RLA), En-bloc, and Lump Sum.

The Nation news reports that N1.64 trillion has been disbursed as total lump sum since the inception of the contributory pension scheme (CPS)

This figure includes N1.25 trillion disbursed under Programmed Withdrawal, and N390 billion disbursed as Retiree Life Annuity (RLA).

While the Programmed Withdrawal is a scheme that gives retirees monthly or quarterly payments, the Retired Life Annuity is a series of monthly or quarterly pension payments purchased from a Life Assurance Company.

The report also shows that N72.41 billion has been disbursed as en-bloc payments as of the end of Q1 2025.

This is a bulk payment made to retirees where their Consolidated RSA Balances are insufficient to secure a monthly or quarterly pension or annuity that is up to one-third of the current minimum wage.

The lump sum is usually about 25 to 50% of the total value of the RSA at the time of retirement.

In related news, about 300,000 Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders in Nigeria have switched their pension fund managers in the last five years.

Legit.ng reported that these workers and retirees took advantage of the portability feature to change their PFAs without having to start from scratch.

In these transfers, a total of N1.26 trillion was moved from one pension fund administrator to another.

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Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.

Source: Legit.ng