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21 february 2024, 13:28
Citizens should request a bank statement of their individual personal account in the Social Fund of Russia to identify possible unlawful transfers of their pension savings from one non-state pension fund to another, Financial Ombudsman Tatyana Savitskaya said.
She noted that this sort of unscrupulous actions to transfer savings unlawfully used to be practised several years ago, but a lot of people are still unaware of it. As a result of such transfers, consumers may have lost part of their financial resources.
"A citizen can receive at any time in his personal account on the State Services website a statement on the status of his/her individual personal account in the SFR, which indicates, among other things, his/her current insurer. Considering that the change of insurer can be carried out not more than once a year, it is sufficient to receive such a statement once a year as a measure of control. It is best done in April – May, when all information about a possible change of insurer has already been recorded in the State Services database,” the Financial Ombudsman clarified.
Since 11 December 2023, there has been in place a simplified procedure for citizens to return unlawfully transferred pension savings – with the help of an appeal to the Financial Ombudsman. “If a citizen becomes aware that his/her insurer for compulsory pension insurance has changed without his/her knowledge, while he/she has not signed an agreement with the new insurer and (or) has not submitted an application to the SFR, he/she can file an appeal to the Financial Ombudsman and demand the return of pension savings to the previous insurer,” Tatyana Savitskaya went on to explain.
The appeal is submitted to the Financial Ombudsman after the application for restoration of the violated right (claim) has been sent to the NPF. If the newly-chosen NPF does not recognise the violation of the order of transfer of pension savings to it, the Financial Ombudsman is to arrange a handwriting examination of the citizen’s signature in the contract and in the application, and in case of confirmation of the fact that the signature was not made by the citizen, the Financial Ombudsman will take a decision to return the citizen’s pension savings to the previous insurer.
Pension savings are returned considering the results of investment, in addition, the current NPF will transfer to the previous insurer the interest for the use of the citizen’s pension savings, as well as return deductions to its income from the investment of pension savings. In its turn, the previous insurer will restore to the individual personal account of the citizen the amount of investment income, which was previously withdrawn by them in the case of unlawful change of the insurer.
