Treasury defends Pension Fund for Wellbeing

Acapulco, Gro., Around 4.5 billion pesos, belonging to 2.2 million inactive accounts, will go from the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (Infonavit) to the Pension Fund for Wellbeing, reported Carlos Martínez Velázquez, director of the organization.

The transfer of these resources to the seed fund, plus those that are without movement in the retirement fund administrators (Afore), in no way does it imply that resources will be taken from workersthe Undersecretary of the Treasury, Gabriel Yorio González, emphasized in a conversation with the media.

Within the framework of the 87th Banking Convention, he explained that the financing sources that are established in the initiative to create the Pension Fund for Wellbeing are budget savings, plus the accounts inactive of the workers who are under the administration of the Afore and Infonavit itself.

The initiative that was about to be voted on Tuesday in the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, but was returned to committees, in order to refine its wording, consists of creating the Pension Fund for Wellbeing, which will serve to complete up to 100 percent percent of the last salary, the replacement rate of workers who have contributed since 1997. Currently it is usually 30 percent.

This seed fund will also be fed by resources that come from defunct organizations, such as the National Financial Institution for Agricultural, Rural, Forestry and Fisheries Development. It is estimated that the initiative will have an effect on the savings of 10 million inactive accounts owned by workers over 70 years of age.

Martínez Velázquez assured that, contrary to what has been promoted, inactive resources are a imprescriptible right of the workers and the moment the user of an inactive account decides to claim their money, the institution that captured them must pay them.

He accused that before 2020 the inactive accounts went to the current expenses of the institutes. The new design being discussed in Congress, he assured, maintains the guarantee that the moment the resources are claimed by the workers they will be delivered.

Little impact on Citibanamex’s Afore

If the initiative to create the pension fund proposed by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is approved, there will be an impact on the retirement fund administrator (Afore) controlled by Citibanamex.

In a conference before starting the activities of the Banking Convention, Manuel Romo, general director of Grupo Financiero Citibanamex, indicated that in his group’s Afore there are 670 thousand inactive accounts of older adults, with a balance of 3.9 billion pesos .

It is not material for the size of the Afore. The numbers we have are that there are more than 900 billion pesos administered. The account is very marginal. We are following up on the initiative. There is an important issue and that is that just because the funds are transferred, the right to the pension is not lost.said.

According to official information from the National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (Consar), Citibanamex Afore manages more than 9.9 million worker accounts, with resources exceeding 968 billion pesos.

The government initiative proposes that the resources for the retirement of people over 70 years of age will form the Pension Fund for Wellbeing, which seeks to improve the pension of workers who begin to retire under the current retirement regime. According to the initiative, the fund would be made up of 40 billion pesos that are currently managed by the Afore.

This type of resources in inactive accounts were already transferred to Social Security, it is not something new. The new thing about this is that they will now pass into the hands of a trust administered by the Bank of Mexicosaid Luis Kuri, general director of Afore Citibanamex.

At the same time, he pointed out that the accounts that are considered inactive are those that did not receive any claims from the beneficiaries or workers.

We have always been in favor of any initiative that improves workers’ pensions. There really is no significant impact for us due to the amount of resources they representhe added.