Nigeria’s push to extend pension coverage beyond the formal workforce is producing more registered accounts but far fewer active savers, exposing a wide gap between enrolment and actual retirement savings.
By the end of the first quarter of 2026, 219,316 Retirement Savings Accounts had been registered under the Personal Pension Plan, the scheme designed to bring self-employed Nigerians and informal-sector workers into the contributory pension system.
Yet only 18,811 accounts had received contributions, leaving 200,505, or 91.4 percent, unfunded, according to the National Pension Commission’s first-quarter 2026 industry report.
The funded accounts represented just 8.58 percent of total PPP registrations by March, meaning that for roughly every 12 accounts registered, only one had received a contribution.
The figures point to a problem deeper than the number of Nigerians being brought into the pension system: registration is not translating into sustained savings at the same pace.
The Personal Pension Plan was created to enable self-employed people and workers in the informal sector to participate in Nigeria’s Contributory Pension Scheme and build retirement savings.
Unlike workers whose pension contributions are deducted through payroll, PPP participants make contributions themselves.
The funding gap therefore leaves the pension industry with a harder task than simply getting Nigerians to open accounts. It has to turn those registrations into active and sustained savings.
PPP contributions rose to N147.16 million in the first quarter of 2026 from N103.30 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of N43.86 million, or 42.46 percent.
Cumulative contributions under the plan stood at N1.66 billion by the end of March. The increase in quarterly contributions is significant in percentage terms, but the absolute value remains small compared with the number of accounts registered.
This creates a conversion problem for the scheme: how to turn a large stock of registered accounts into a larger pool of actively funded accounts.
The report also showed that 15 PPP contributors accessed N11.12 million through the contingent withdrawal window during the first quarter.
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RSA registrations continue to rise
The funding weakness under the PPP comes as Nigeria’s wider pension system continues to add registered contributors.
Total Retirement Savings Account registrations increased from 11.04 million at the end of 2025 to 11.18 million by the end of March 2026, following 143,248 new registrations during the quarter.
New registrations were higher than the 114,864 recorded in the fourth quarter of 2025. The composition of new registrations also points to a relatively young pool of new entrants. People below 40 accounted for 75.31 percent of new RSA registrations during the first quarter.
The figures show that the pension industry continues to expand its registration base, but the PPP data reveal that registration and active participation remain two different measures of coverage.
New registrations remain concentrated among leading PFAs
The distribution of new RSA registrations remained concentrated among the industry’s largest pension fund administrators.
The five PFAs with the largest number of new RSA registrations accounted for 54.41 percent of registrations during the first quarter, compared with 62.11 percent in the preceding quarter.
Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers recorded the largest share of new registrations at 17.47 percent, equivalent to 25,024 accounts.
AccessARM Pensions followed with 10.63 percent, while FCMB Pensions accounted for 10.15 percent. TangerineAPT Pensions recorded 9.65 percent and Trustfund Pensions 6.73 percent.
The lower combined share of the five largest operators compared with the previous quarter suggests that new registrations became somewhat less concentrated during the period.
But the distribution of registrations does not change the more fundamental challenge facing the Personal Pension Plan: a large proportion of registered accounts have yet to receive contributions.
Registration is not the same as pension coverage
The first-quarter numbers present two different pictures of Nigeria’s pension industry.
The first is encouraging. More people are being registered. Total RSA registrations are rising, new registrations increased quarter-on-quarter; younger Nigerians account for most new entrants and PPP contributions rose by more than 40 percent during the quarter.
The second is less encouraging. More than nine out of every 10 PPP accounts have not received contributions.
That means the expansion of the registration base is running ahead of the growth in actual retirement savings among PPP participants.
The 219,316 PPP registrations represent people who have entered the pension system’s formal infrastructure, while the 18,811 funded accounts represent the much smaller group for whom registration has so far translated into actual contributions.
That leaves 200,505 registered accounts still to be converted into funded accounts. The next phase of pension expansion will need to be judged not only by how many accounts are opened, but by how many become active and continue receiving contributions.
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