•••targets 48hrs update of contributors

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

WHEN several customers especially  funds contributors are decrying poor and unsatisfactory services by their Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs, one of the leading PFAs in the country, Trustfund Pensions, Plc, has been devising different strategies to make their clients especially contributors, happy through what it calls unequalled and world class service delivery.

A cross section of pensioners

One the strategies is to update enrollees’ Retirement Savings Accounts, RSAs,  with all contributions due them less than 48hours of receipt.

The PFA gave the hint during an interactive forum with employers in Lagos.

Presenting a paper, Mr Kehinde Philips, Regional Head, Lagos Processing Unit, listed four-point strategy Trustfund planned to adopt to achieve this objective.

These, he said, are Prompt crediting of members’ RSAs,Timely printing and delivery of statements of account, Resolution of all customers ‘complaints within 48 hours and Strict compliance with both Internal Policies and Regulatory guidelines, directives and circulars.

According to him, though the fund aimed at providing seamless services to its customers, it has identified some challenges faced by employers in remitting employees’ contributions, informing that the challenges prompted the interactive session.

Saying that while Trustfund  Pensions “cannot totally exonerate ourselves from some of these issues, most of the issues emanate from the process of preparing the monthly remittance schedules. The purpose of this interactive session is to highlight, discuss and come up with solution(s) to the issues responsible for the delay in processing the contributions received.”

Highlighting some of the challenges being experienced by employers, he said:

Duplicate PINs: This is a scenario whereby one RSA PIN is being used for two or more employees. The contributions for the two RSA holders will not be processed immediately until the correct PINs are identified. To avoid the above scenario, we recommend that efforts should be taken by the Pension Desk Officer, PDO, to cross check and make sure that no single PIN is being used for two or more employees.

PINs Not In Trustfund Database/Other Pfas PINs: We have had cases where PINs that belong to another PFA are being included in the schedule submitted to us. This means contribution meant for other PFAs will be paid to Trustfund thereby necessitating the  transfer to the eligible PFAs. In a case like this, PDOs are expected to ensure that their Trustfund monthly remittance schedule contains only list of staff that are registered with Trustfund.

Schedule Without PINs: This is a situation where names are included in schedule without RSA PINs; it means that there is no corresponding PIN to employees ‘name with which to make the remittance. Employer should ensure that each name in the schedule has a corresponding PIN with which to credit the contribution being made. Otherwise, the contributions will be treated as Transitional Contribution Fund, TCF, in line with PenCom guidelines.

Over/Under-Remittance: Over remittance occurs when the amount remitted for a particular month is higher than the amount contained in the remittance schedule. For instance, a situation where N20,000.00 was paid for a schedule with total amount of N19, 500.00. Alternatively, where N18, 000.00 is paid for a schedule that contained a total sum of N20, 000.00 hence a case of under-remittance.

In each of the above situations, we will not be able to process the remittance until the issue is resolved hence members’ accounts are not updated immediately. To address this, the PDO should always reconcile their computation in order to ensure that the total amount on the schedule is what is paid into the bank.

Refunds: In a case where there is an excess in the remittance made, the employer can instruct Trustfund to use the excess for subsequent remittance or as an addition to subsequent remittance to be made. Where the excess is made to an employee’s RSA, the employer should get a consent letter from the affected employee and then write formally to Trustfund requesting for refund from that RSA and reallocation of the excess in subsequent remittance, also attaching the consent letter and RSA statement along. Where the affected employee is a retiree, then the retirement letter should also be attached.

Negative Remittance: This is a situation where a negative value is included as remittance against an employee’s contribution in a remittance schedule probably because the employer wants to recoup an excess that was previously remitted to the said employee’s RSA.    This is not feasible, as negative values should not be posted to any RSA.

This action will cause the entire schedule to remain uncredited until resolved by the employer. In order for the employer to recoup the excess remittance from an employee’s RSA, the case should be treated as refund, earlier discussed.

Invalid/PINs: This is a situation where PINs quoted are not correct or not complete. This also happens when alphabetic ‘O’is used instead of number 0. To address this, PDOs are to always ensure that correct and complete PINs are quoted against respective staff on the remittance schedule. This will help in reducing time wasted in resolving the issues thereby facilitating prompt update of members‘ accounts with contributions received.

Mismatched PINs:    This occurs when RSA PIN of Mr. A is quoted against contributions of Mr. B or vice versa. This will automatically result in crediting contributions meant for Mr. A into the account of Mr. B thereby creating a reconciliation problem. The    solution to this issue is for the PDO to always ensure that correct RSA PINs are quoted against the right names.

Duplicated Period: This is a situation where the period stated on the remittance schedule has been previously remitted for. For instance, we have seen a case where the remittance schedule meant for February200x is titled January 200x and since the staff has been credited for January, the transactions will be delayed till we reconcile with the Pension Desk Officer.

This usually occurs where same amount is being remitted for the periods and same number of staff with the same amount. Then the Pension Desk Officer goes ahead to still use the previous schedule without changing the period.

The solution to this issue is for the PDO    to always ensure that correct Period is quoted on the remittance schedule to avoid delay in processing of the contributions received.

SELF ALLOCATED PINs: This is a situation where the PINs quoted on the remittance schedule are made up by the PDO and not actually PENCOM generated PINs or not in line with the Valid PINs. The PDOs should encourage the affected employees to register with PFA of their choice in order to prevent reoccurrence of self made up PINs on the remittance schedule.

PAYMENT WITHOUT SCHEDULE: We have instances where an employer made payment for pension contribution its employees without the corresponding schedule submitted. This usually occurs when payments are made through electronic fund transfers such as NEFT, REMITA, NIBSS and so on. Whenever an employer makes direct online payment, the payment should be properly narrated to indicate the name of the employer and possibly the period the payment is meant for e.g. there should be detailed narration of the payment so as to credit contributors RSAs appropriately. Efforts should be made to send the corresponding schedule for the remittance to Trust fund and the Zenith Pension Custodian whenever remittances are made through electronic fund transfer, this will facilitate prompt update of members account.

CONVERSION OF SCANNED COPY OF SCHEDULE: Sometimes, in the process of converting the scanned copy of schedule provided to PFC to softcopy for easy processing, some characters are being lost/changed which may render some Pins invalid / incorrect. This will invariably make it impossible for us to immediately credit appropriate RSA accounts. On the strength of the above, we encourage employers to always send softcopy of their schedule to the following e-mail addresses in order to guide against all forms of conversion error as well as a way of achieving timely credit of contributions received.

ZERO REMITTANCE: This is a situation whereby employer is not remitting for a particular employee yet the name of such employee is being included in the schedule. Employees should always ensure that the schedules are filtered well so that employees that have no contribution are not included in the schedules.

REMITTANCES of RETIREE with REGAINED EMPLOYMENT: In the case with retirees that regained employment after retirement, the remittances should be treated as voluntary contributions.

Trustfund Pension’s roles:

Mr. Philips explain that “It is no doubt that if the above suggestions for moving forward are being carried out by employers, we will be able to render excellent services to our esteem customers which includes: Prompt retrieval of payment schedules from the employers within 3days of deposit. Prompt crediting of the Pension deposits to the respective RSA not more than 24hours after deposit. Timely printing and delivery of statements of Accounts / credit alert etc. and Continuous education for the employers on the need to prepare payment schedules accurately.