By Kingsley Jassi:
The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) will meet the pension industry this month as it presses the players to invest, at least 5 percent, into infrastructure development for economic transformation.
The sector saw strong growth in 2025 with assets expanding from K3.5 trillion to K8.4 trillion at the close of the year.
However, investment assets of the sector remained concentrated in listed equities exposing pension funds to equity market volatility and investment diversification requirements compliance risk according to a recent RBM Financial Stability Report.
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At a Nico Pensions seminar in Lilongwe on Tuesday, Pensions Industry Chief Examiner, Shamiso Malekano said the industry has 36 months to comply with the September 2025 directive that intends to reduce the concentration risk while making pension funds contribute more to economic transformation.
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“The Reserve Bank will be meeting the pension industry to follow up on the progress being made towards compliance in the given period,” she said.
Nico Pension Chief Executive Officer, Gerald Chima said they were already working on complying to the directive, working on projects in agriculture, mining and other sectors.
Apart from the compliance risk, the company also looks at challenges ahead, as they expect a difficult year with market developments slowing down performance of the industry, citing lower earnings expected from the listed equities.
The company managed to deliver returns of between 90 percent and 146.47 percent across the two investment funds in 2025. The company, on the other hand, suffered remittance defaults worth K16 billion as of the close of last year
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Meanwhile, pension industry contributions across the industry continued to grow strongly, reflecting improved compliance, and expanded scheme coverage.
Total contributions reached K352.4 billion as of December 2025, largely driven by improved remittance compliance and an expansion in membership that reached 750,253.
