PenOp To Deploy Uniform Electronic Pension Collection System Jan.1

Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) says it will begin the deployment of an Electronic Pension Contribution Collection System (EPCCOS) on Jan. 1.
Mr Bayo Yusuf, Managing Director of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Pension Custodians, said this at a 2-day 2014 PenOp Media Partners Retreat on Friday in Lagos.
Yusuf, who is also the association’s Chairman, Sub-committee on EPCCOS, said that the system was to drive pension remittance schedules.
According to him, EPCCOS will unify the way employers remit their various workers schedules as well as ease collections for Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and Pension Fund Custodians (PFCs).
”This electronic platform is informed by the lack of specific rules on how employers will submit workers’ schedules for pension to PFAs and PFCs.
”We have been faced with huge challenges of how to reconcile some schedules submitted by employers.
” To tackle these challenges, we have therefore come up with this electronic devise– portal.
”It will ensure that workers are credited adequately and that employers are saved the time of going around one PFA and PFC for reconciliation, ” he said.
Yusuf said that the portal was being developed with the Nigeria Inter-banking Settlement System (NIBSS).
He said the platform had been tested by all the PFAs, PFCs and National Commission on Pension (PenCom).
The Subcommittee chairman on EPCCOS said that the pilot programme test had been carried out among over 500 employers.
He said that whatever problems encountered at this stage would be perfected and that by Jan. 1, the portal would be available for use by all employers.
Yusuf said that the EPCCOS was the pension industry application and employers would use it for free.
Mr Samuel Oluyemi, NIBSS Head, Business Process and Outsourcing, said that the electronic platform ensured that standards were kept in payment facilitation.
According to him, EPCCOS is being introduced to solve the problem of un-remitted pensions and schedules that could not be traced.
He said that once an employer upload its workers’ pension details it would show the total amount remitted, specific PFAs and PFCs and the amount to pay to each of them.
Oluyemi said the employer could make the payments electronically or take the receipt generated by the portal to pay in the bank within seven days.
He said that the payment schedules would still be on the site and would be removed after 30 days.
Ms Susan Oranye, PenOp Executive Secretary, said that the EPCCOS was to enable employers comply with the 2014 Pension Act.
According to her, the employers can do this from the comfort of their offices and avoid sanctions and penalties from PenCom.
She said that new employers to the scheme would– through EPCCOS– find it easy to remit their workers’ pension contributions.

 (NAN) in Leadership Newspaper