Impact Of Retirement Benefit Act (RBA) On Investment Returns To Pension Funds In Kenya

Abstract

This study focused on the analysis of the impact of RBA guidelines on the return on investments of both pension funds under management and those for pension schemes. A random sample of 175 fund trustees and a census of 13 fund managers from registered fund management companies participated in the survey. The questionnaire was administered through the drop-and-pick method. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and summarized in descriptive statistics, such as mean, standard deviation, frequencies, percentages, and t-tests for mean differences were used. The study determined that annual investment return for retirement benefits schemes in the past three years ranged between 10 and 27.52%, sometimes falling below the annual inflation. The Kenya pension funds are in compliance with the prescribed broad guidelines with regard to maximum percentages of total asset value of fund by the RBA Act. They are, however, moderately in compliance with the regulations requiring that that they maintain an actuarial solvency of 80% and above. The overall weighted returns before the implementation of RBA Guidelines was low (average scale of 1.9) while the weighted returns after the implementation of RBA Guidelines was high, at an average scale of 3.7. An analysis of the trend, however, showed that long-run performance has slowed down. The highest growth was realized for mortgage and cash returns as opposed to rights issues and bonus shares. There is need to fashion out the appropriate mix of reforms suitable for Kenya that will ensure the long-run sustainability of its pension systems. The challenge is for the country to adopt a unified, harmonized, and transparent regulatory framework that will integrate the pension system in order to ensure sustainability in its financing and mobilizing of adequate funds to cater for the ever-increasing population of beneficiaries in this regard, comprehensive pension reform policy with wider target radar and one that will consolidate and harmonize the various legislations touching on retirement benefits industry in line with Retirement Benefits Act. The Regulator needs to implement measures to ensure pension funds are insulated from inflationary and other risks. An effective way is to institute a pension risk insurance fund that will underwrite and compensate such losses as will be prescribed. Further, there is need for a systematic indexation of benefits to inflation. RBA should strengthen its compliance and enforcement function in order to ensure that it appropriately deals with emerging present and future regulatory challenges.