The National Pension Commission has approved nine Payment Solution Service Providers to participate in the new online Pension Contribution Remittance System it has introduced.

In a new update on its website, PenCom said that the online Pension Contribution Remittance System replaces the manual process of employers remitting their employees’ pension contributions.

The unveiled service providers include Paypen by Netline Limited, Pencentral by Chamsaccess Limited, Pensphere (formerly Paythru) by Pethahiah Rehoboth Int’l Limited, Penremit by Cyberspace Limited, Pensol by Uniswitch Technology Limited, Penco by Gemspay Solutions Limited, Awabah by Awabah Remit Services Limited, Epcoss by Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement Systems Plc and Interswitch by Interswitch Group.

Under the new arrangement, PenCom said that “Employers can now upload employees’ schedules and make payments of their pension contributions online from the comfort of their homes or offices.

The PCRS is free and comes at no cost to the employer.

“The PCRS ensures that pension remittance schedules uploaded by employers are accurate and employee personal identification numbers and pension fund administrators are verified with PenCom before remittances are processed.”

In this new scheme, employers can select from the approved service providers to facilitate their pension contribution remittances.

Recall that the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria announced in December that it would introduce four pension service solution providers starting April 1, 2025, to standardise pension remittance in the sector.

With the PenCom announcement, the initiative has been fast-tracked by a couple of weeks (as employers can start using the service providers immediately), and the selection of service providers has improved.

Speaking at the 2024 PenCom Media Conference held in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer of PenOp, Oguche Agudah, said the adoption of technology was to address some of the challenges with the current system of remittance, which included uncredited retirement savings accounts and operators getting remittances without a schedule.

He had listed four service providers back then, including PayPen by Netline Ltd., Paythru by Pethahiah by Rehoboth International Ltd., Pension Central by Chams, and Cyberpay by Cyberspace Ltd.

Explaining how the process would work, Agudah said, “What will happen is that when the employer pays the pension, it goes straight to the RSA holder. With this, there is going to be a standardised remittance template. There will also be validation checks to eliminate instances of ‘We got money, but don’t know where it’s coming from.’”