DEFINED BENEFIT RISK TRANSFER STRATEGIES: COMPARISON BETWEEN THE IRISH AND THE NIGERIAN PENSION SYSTEMS

This dissertation compares the Irish and the Nigerian Pension systems with regards to Defined Benefit (DB) risk transfer strategies. Both Ireland and Nigeria have a similar history of being colonies of Britain with the former gaining independence in 1922 and the latter in 1960 (Wikipedia, 2022). Due to this significant history, both countries inherited some of their public administrative practices as well as their initial pension administrative system from the United Kingdom. Over the years, Nigeria and Ireland have both reformed their pension systems to fix these various issues along the lines of their different peculiarities. In a bid to evaluate the pension system of both countries, we must consider the demographic profile, the macro-economic environment, the capacity of administrative, regulatory, and supervisory institutions and the breadth, depth, and efficiency of financial markets, particularly with respect to long-term instruments. This study used descriptive research method as secondary data were gathered from published works and report relating to the research aim. The study shows that the Irish pension system is more mature than the Nigerian pension system in terms of risk transfer strategies, population coverage and old age risk management. The study recommends that the Nigeria pension system can improve on their pension system by incorporating some of the pension risk transfer strategies adopted by the Irish pension system. This would go a long way in improving the coverage level and hence resulting into higher portfolio performance.