….driven by digital onboarding and aggressive public sensitization
Young persons, below the age of 40 years in Nigeria’s labour force, have accounted for 75.31 percent of all new Retirement Savings Account (RSA) registrations in the first quarter of 2026, according to first quarter report of the National Pension Commission (PenCom).
The total of new registrations under the Contributory Pension Scheme surged to 143,248 during the three-month period, driven by improved digital onboarding and aggressive public sensitization campaigns.
This reveals a demographic shift anchored on longer investment horizons and expanded capacity for long-term asset accumulation.
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It also positions the influx of younger pension contributors as a structural bedrock for the country’s expanding financial system.
Ths figure represents a 24.7 percent quarter-on-quarter increase from the 114,864 accounts opened in the final quarter of 2025, bringing total cumulative RSA registrations across the federation to 11.183 million.
The steady influx of new contributors, alongside market yields, propelled Nigeria’s total pension assets to a historic high of N31.32 trillion by May 2026. The asset base grew 29.5 percent year-on-year from N24.18 trillion recorded in May 2025, underlining the industry’s role as a primary pool of domestic institutional capital.
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To maximize this expanding capital pool, PenCom disclosed plans to review the Pension Reform Act of 2014, with a view to pushing statutory contribution rates above the current 10 percent for employers and 8 percent for employees.
Concurrently, the regulator is structuring a specialized investment vehicle designed to channel funds from the $22 billion pension industry into critical national infrastructure projects.
Market dynamics among operators are also shifting as mid-tier Pension Fund Administrators gain ground. The five largest PFAs controlled 54.41 percent of new registrations in Q1 2026, dropping from 62.11 percent in the preceding quarter, a trend PenCom attributed to heightened competitive pressure within the industry.
Despite these headline gains, deep structural vulnerabilities persist across the national labor landscape.
The report indicates that registered pension contributors currently represent a meager 12.1 percent of Nigeria’s estimated 92 million workforce, leaving the overwhelming majority of informal sector workers without formal retirement safety nets and underscoring the urgent need for targeted policy interventions.
Ngozi Ekugo is a Senior Correspondent at BusinessDay. She holds a Masters in management from the University of Lagos, an undergraduate from University of Lagos, and is in an alumni of Queen's College. Shes currently an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM). She has a brief experience at Goldman sachs, London in its Human Capital Management division. She is interested in human capital development and is leveraging her varied experience across sectors to report labour and global mobility trends for stakeholders to make informed decisions.
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