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Ahmet Genç, Undersecretary of Treasury: BES savings have reached
80 million TL

Pension Monitoring Center and Habertürk TV organized a panel
at İstanbul University to gather prominent market representa-
tives within the scope of “We meet for your retirement, Turkey is
getting BESed” Project.

During the hosted by Pension Monitoring Center and Habertük
TV, Ahmet Genç-Deputy Undersecretary of Treasury, Mehmet
Uğur Erkan-General Manager of Anadolu Emeklilik ve Hayat,
and Prof. Dr. Mahmut Ak-Rector of Istanbul University evaluat-
ed the pension market in Turkey. They shared the benefits of In-
dividual Pension and Auto Enrollment Systems and their visions
about individual savings and investments.

Deputy Undersecretary of Treasury, Ahmet Genç explained why
an individual pension system is required and talked about the new
revisions to the system. “All around the world, retirement is based ed to wait for 2 years to receive the 1.000 TL incentive provided
upon 3 pillars. First pillar is the state retirement system, second by the state at the entrance. We have submitted the elimination
pillar is the retirement system provided by the employer, third of this process for the evaluation of relevant authorities; and we
pillar is the voluntary retirement system. Within the first system, are planning to introduce an amendment for this regulation as
pensioners cannot maintain the preferred standards of living due soon as possible.”
to the income gap during their retirement period. At this point,
Individual Pension Systems are required to close this gap and to
make additional savings. Amount of savings accumulated in BES “Voluntary system has 7 million participants”
has reached 80 billion TL. Our target for Turkish individual pen-
sion system is to close that income gap to some extent through Mehmet Uğur Erkan, General Manager of Anadolu Hayat ve
savings before retirement. There are some misunderstandings Emeklilik said: “Auto-Enrollment System is a very important
about the system. The money accumulating in the system is your step. We have reached nearly 7 million participants in the third
money and it is being accumulated under your name. It does not pillar that is based on voluntary participation. We gained new
flow into the state budget. This money is only managed by the participants in the system thanks to the 25 percent state support
pension companies and they receive a small amount of payment and through our struggles of persuasion. 18 pension companies
to manage those funds. The deductions made for those fees is prepared their system infrastructures and became compliant with
even lower in Auto-Enrollment system, as it is automatically lim- the regulation in as short as 4 months. Our only shortfall was
ited by the government,” Ahmet Genç said. the fact that we could not communicate the system efficiently
enough. We must explain this through these meetings. We must
explain the benefits of long term savings especially to people who
Genç also talked about the revisions in the system and added as
follows: “Parliament’s planning and budget commission affirmed have just begun their career; we must tell them that the sooner
the article on increasing the withdrawal period to 6 months. If they begin saving the bigger benefits they will get. Because the
the general assembly approves, it will become legalized. In ad- most valuable money is the initially invested money.”
dition, some amendments are made on general authorizations
about operational issues. Normally if a person withdraws from “Academic employees should especially tend more to-
the Auto-Enrollment system within the first 2 months, they need- wards individual pension system”
Prof. Dr. Mahmut AK, Rector of Istanbul University, gave a
speech about why we could not make savings and talked about
savings and resource balance: “As we know from our own cul-
ture, no matter how limited resources are, it is possible to make
savings from those resources. The new system is a system that
unprecedentedly empowers the saver. Employees generally lose
their income when they retire; however this loss reaches great-
er levels for the academic staff. Because during the academic
life, contributions to our payroll can come from different items
depending on the intensity or characteristics of the services pro-
vided by an academic staff. This means that we experience great-
er amount of income losses during retirement compared to oth-
er occupations. Bearing this loss in mind, academic employees
should especially tend more towards individual pension system,”
Mahmut Ak said.