According to the Committee on Statistics of the Ministry of National Economy, the ratio of pension funds to GDP in 2018 amounted to 15.2%. At that, in 2018, the amount of net investment income (917.1 bn tenge) exceeded the pension contributions amount (848.6 bn tenge). Thus, on every Tenge contributed to the individual pension savings accounts during the reporting period, at least one Tenge was additionally generated as an investment return. This was made possible by virtue of the investment policy implemented by the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan being the Trustee Manager for pension assets. Pension funds benefit the whole country – over 70% of pension assets are invested into domestic market, ensuring, on the one hand, functioning and development of various sectors of the economy, jobs and, consequently, regular inflows of pension contributions, and on the other hand, investment return on members’ accounts.

Success of a fully funded pension system is conditioned by the extent of population coverage. The system’s efficiency is measured by the adequacy of pension savings, which can be only achieved through regular, in due amount contributions to individual pension accounts.

For this reason, in 2018, the UAPF continued working in all directions set in the five-year Corporate Development Strategy approved by the Board of Directors in 2017. The Fund implemented new projects aiming at raising financial literacy of the population, such individual consultations to members on pension planning matters, getting in touch with the members with zero balance accounts and ‘awakening’ members who had stopped contributing for several years, as well as developing voluntary pension plans.

One of the strategic goals of the UAPF is to provide quality services in accordance with the best practices. The significant achievements of 2018 are the receipt of Certificate of Compliance with ISO: 9001, implementation of the pension calculator service in the members online account on the web-site, as well as the calculator of a minimum pension savings amount required for buying a pension annuity. As part of development of e-services allowing the customers to access remotely the UAPF services without need to actually visit the Fund’s offices, new services have been launched such as receipt of a Duplicate Pension Agreement, and opening voluntary pension savings accounts. Thereby, almost the full range of pension services is now available online.

Thus, the goals set for 2018 before employees and the Executive Board of the Fund have been achieved. According to the Independent Auditor’s conclusion, the financial statements on the pension scheme and own assets comply with established standards in all material respects. You may find confirmation of this in the figures and facts presented in this annual report.