21/11/2011
By Ilonka Oudenampsen
Assets in German Riester funds have increased by almost 10 per cent to €8.1bn in the ongoing year, the German Investment and Asset Management Association (BVI) revealed.
Riester-Rente is the colloquial term for a government grant-aided privately-funded pension scheme in Germany. It is possible to ‘riester’ with investment funds, endowment policies, bank savings plans or home pension schemes.
With 2.9 million policies, investment funds have a market share of almost 20 per cent, the BVI said. Since the beginning of 2011 up to the end of September, the number of investment fund contracts has increased by 3.8 per cent.
In the same period endowment policies rose by 2.5 per cent to 10.6 million and bank savings plans increased by 4.3 per cent to 733,000. Home pension schemes were introduced in 2008 and have been developing well. They now make up almost 4.7 per cent of the total market share.
In the first nine months of 2011, the Riester market as a whole has increased by around 4.2 per cent, to nearly 15 million contracts.
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