The overall balance sheet total of Belgian institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORPs) fell last year by 14 per cent. This is the conclusion of the annual statistical overview prepared by the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA).
The FSMA is responsible for the supervision of IORPs, also known as pension funds. Every year, it publishes a summary of statistics regarding IORPs. The thirteenth edition of that statistical overview is now available.
The most important elements of the overview are as follows:
- At the end of 2022, Belgium had 159 IORPs governed by Belgian law, compared to 169 pension funds in 2021.
- Meanwhile, the number of members in IORPs rose by 13 per cent to 2.43 million.
- The balance sheet total of all IORPs at the end of last year was 40.4 billion euros, a 14 per cent decrease compared to the previous year. This decrease is due mainly to the poor performance of the stock market as a result of the events in Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis.
- Belgian IORPs invested a little more than three-quarters of their assets in undertakings for collective investment (UCIs), mostly in share and bond funds. Taking into account the underlying assets of these UCIs, IORPs invested, directly and indirectly, 48 per cent in bonds and 41 per cent in shares. The return on all investments at the end of 2022 stood at -14.9 per cent.
- The average coverage level was 113 per cent. This is down compared to 2021. The decrease is due mainly to poor stock market performance and to the fall in the market value of bonds as a result of rising interest rates. Moreover, inflation has had a negative impact on defined-benefit (DB) plans: in the case of (DB) plans where salaries are linked to inflation, pension obligations rose more than in previous years.
The coverage level indicates the volume of assets a pension fund has available to meet all its obligations. DB plans are pension plans that promise to pay out a fixed amount of supplementary pension.
In addition to the 2022 overview, the annual financial statements and some additional statistics at sectoral level are available on the FSMA's website (available in French - Dutch only).