Page 16 - Turkinsurance Digital Magazine

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Recently, significant innovations have been taking place in
the sector. The BES application has been opened for the un-
der-18s. How do you, as an institution, interpret this applica-
tion? How has this application received any attention so far?

As SEDDK, we aim to ensure that all our citizens benefit from
the benefits of BES so that they can maintain their working-age
well-being levels in retirement.

We have witnessed that the private pension system, which has seen
a steady increase in the number of participants since 2003, has
been developing faster with the state contribution reform and the
Automatic Participation System implemented in 2013 and 2017,
respectively. In 2012, there were about 3 million participants in
the system, but now we have reached about 13 million partici-
pants. While the fund size was TL 26 billion in 2012, today it has
exceeded TL 190 billion with the support of 25% of our state.

As you know, with the change of the law made in May 2021, it
is possible for people under the age of 18 to join the BES. As we
expected, this development was met with quite high interest. In the
short time that has passed, while more than 82 thousand children
under the age of 18 are included in the system, the total fund size
of these children has reached 80 million TL.

In addition, we have provided the opportunity to transfer to BES
from private pension organizations that make a commitment to
retirement. We expect that approximately TL 5 billion will be
transferred to BES from private pension institutions within the
framework of this opportunity by the end of 2023.

In the light of all these developments, we can observe very serious
increases in both the number of participants and the size of the
fund next year.

On the other hand, as you know, in order to make BES more at-
tractive, we have implemented an Individual Pension Fund Buying
and Selling Platform (BEFAS) together with CMB and Takas-
bank. Thus, we enabled PPS participants to choose among all pen-
sion mutual funds.

What do you think can be done to further spread both insur-
ance awareness and BES in society?

The insurance industry of our country has been following a steady
growth trend in recent years. As the most important factor in this
If I must share it as a figure, we have issued 2 Presidential De- course, we can say that the need for insurance increases with the
crees, 4 Tariff and Instruction Communiqués, 3 regulations and increase in education and income levels. At the same time, along
11 circulars in the field of insurance since the day we started our with the strengthening of communication resources, the increase
activities. All of these are important steps taken in the sector's of awareness-raising campaigns on insurance and BES is an im-
journey to healthy and sustainable growth, primarily prioritizing portant factor.
the public interest.