Retirement fund administrators (Afores) broke a trend of four consecutive months reporting capital gains for workers, since in February they registered 121,117 million pesos in losses, according to information from the National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (Consar). ).
The supervisor of the Retirement Savings System (SAR) also reported that from February 2022 to February of this year, losses of 23,386 million pesos have been registered.
For their part, in the first two months of 2023, fund managers had 30.201 million pesos in capital gains for workers.
The Consar explained that the capital losses in February are a consequence of persistent inflation, which has caused central banks to continue increasing rates. In addition, the volatility in the stock markets is still ongoing since the main indices fell during the month.
It should be remembered that both capital gains and losses recorded in the SAR are the result of fluctuations in the prices of assets and that they only become effective as gains or losses when the resources are withdrawn.
In this sense, last year the Afores registered losses of 215.477 million pesos, which was a historical figure for the 25 years of the SAR.
The losses of 2022 were caused by the armed conflict in Ukraine, by the accelerated world inflation and by the increase in interest rates.
Profit of the Afores rebounded in the first two months
At the same time, in the January-February period, the profits of the retirement fund managers registered 1,506 million pesos, which represented an annual increase of 712% in real terms, according to information from the National Commission of the Savings System for retirement.
The annual increase is due to the low base of comparison, since in the first two months of last year the fund managers obtained profits of 172 million pesos as a result of the entry into force of the maximum commission of 0.57 percent.
2023 is the second consecutive year in which the average commission charged by the Afores on the worker’s balance is 0.57% as a result of the reform of the SAR Law.
In this sense, income from commission on balance, which is its main source of resources, registered 4,930 million pesos in the first two months of the year, which represented an annual contraction of 3.6% in real terms.
With the 0.57% commission charge, workers will continue to benefit by maintaining savings in their individual account for more than 24,400 million pesos this year, which will allow them to increase their retirement balance, according to Consar.
Fewer workers withdrew resources
In the second month of the year, 118,656 workers decided to withdraw resources from their fund manager, which meant an annual contraction of 14.2 percent.
The foregoing also represented the second consecutive drop since in February 2022 the number of workers decreased 2.1% compared to the previous year.
In the first two months of 2023, 250,786 workers have used the right to withdraw resources from the fund manager, which represented a 9.5% drop compared to the same period last year.
At the same time, Consar reported that the 118,656 workers withdrew 1,635 million pesos in the second month of the year, which represented an annual contraction of 1.1% in real terms.
In the first two months of the year, 3,502 million pesos have been withdrawn, which meant a real increase of 4.5% compared to the same period last year.
