The financial market is looking for retirement – Newspaper Kommersant No. 231 (7432) of 12/13/2022

The concept of the development of individual investment accounts (IIA) proposed by the Ministry of Finance, which will make them a new tool for accumulating voluntary pensions, may be in demand, according to the National Association of Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR): domestic demand for investment objects in the future could support the development of the Russian economy. At the same time, the interest of citizens themselves in new types of savings will be limited by the discrediting of previous versions of funded pensions by the state, a short planning horizon, low financial literacy and low profitability due to the paternalism of the authorities limiting the risks of such investments.

Stock market participants support the idea of ​​the Ministry of Finance to reform IIS, giving investors the opportunity to use them to form a voluntary pension, according to the NAUFOR expert opinion on the project of the Ministry of Finance “Main directions for the development of the financial market of the Russian Federation for 2023-2025”. The association sees domestic demand as the main source of development of the Russian economy, which “should be stimulated, including by creating and developing long-term savings instruments for citizens.”

Recall that on Friday the press service of the Ministry of Finance reported that the department, creating a strategy for the development of financial markets until 2030, is also working on a long-term savings program – it will allow Russians to receive additional income in addition to state payments after retirement (in special life situations and earlier). The ministry plans to make a new type of individual investment accounts, IIS-3, an instrument for such savings: it will differ in a longer investment period (ten years instead of three) and a set of benefits. In particular, the Ministry of Finance proposes to oblige the state to insure up to 2.8 million rubles. savings by analogy with bank deposits, create a state program for co-financing contributions (up to 36 thousand rubles per year) and give a tax deduction of up to 52 thousand rubles. per year for contributions up to 400 thousand rubles. It is assumed that the right to invest citizens’ funds in OFZs, infrastructure bonds, corporate bonds and other securities will be given to NPFs, management companies and brokers.

According to Olesya Kirilenko, Head of Product Development at Ingosstrakh-Investments Management Company, in theory this could make the future program attractive, but the investment horizon for Russians is shrinking: “Now even the number of those who invest in existing IIS for a period of three years is falling, for the first time in their entire existence. In addition, according to her, the mass interest in the product will be limited by the insufficient level of financial literacy of Russians.

Even under the current conditions, the “core” of the middle class (25-27% of the population) may have resources for investment, says Igor Polyakov, an expert at the Center for Foreign Investment and Social Development, “however, it is impossible to predict whether they will be interested in investing in the Russian stock market, given the recent series of downfalls and an uncertain future. Real estate is always an alternative – according to the results of 2021, he cites Rosstat statistics, it accounted for the largest share of citizens’ investments.

It should be noted that the ideas of the Ministry of Finance are a continuation of the long-term track of “involving long-term pension money in the economy”: against the backdrop of the discrediting of the very idea of ​​the accumulative pension system by a number of scandals with NPFs in the 2010s and its “freezing” after the annexation of Crimea and the ensuing crisis of 2014 (the money was then needed to reduce the budget transfer to the FIU due to the increase in spending on the Crimea), initiatives of this kind were presented by the Ministry of Finance of the Central Bank every few years – the participation of pension savings in the economy gradually decreased (see “Kommersant” dated August 27, 2020) , and in the sectoral context, it was mainly their share invested in OFZs (see Kommersant dated May 31, 2019), that is, in the state itself, that grew. The reason for this dynamic is an irresolvable conflict between the investment interests of the government, for which citizens’ savings are a source of funds for economic development, and the paternalistic position of the authorities, which severely limits the range of assets in which future pensions can be invested, to a conservative portfolio for reasons of protecting citizens from loss of investment. A revival of the discussion of the issue until the contradictions are resolved is hardly possible – despite the difference between the current ideas of the Ministry of Finance and the previous ones, their detailed discussion will most likely run into the same conflict: for example, the idea of ​​”guaranteeing” investments up to 2.8 million rubles. will, apparently, be paid at the expense of income from this money, by analogy with the deposit insurance system, which in the end will not give private investors the returns they are interested in.

Anastasia Manuylova, Oleg Sapozhkov