27/05/2024

April 2024 Monthly Report

Overview of supervised entities’ activities in the financial services sector for April 2024

PENSION FUNDS

SECOND PILLAR PENSION FUNDS

At the end of April 2024, mandatory pension funds (MPFs) had 2,268,274 members, i.e. 3,542 (0.16%) members more than in the previous month. Category B funds had 80.1% of all MPF members, while category A and category C funds had 15.2% and 4.7% of all MPF members respectively. Out of 5,224 new members, 5,100 (97.6%) were automatically allocated by Regos. Termination of membership due to retirement or death was recorded with respect to 1,682 insured persons. Total net contributions paid to MPFs in April amounted to EUR 124.6m (0.6% of net assets at end-March). At the same time, total payments from all MPFs due to personal account closures reached EUR 25.2m (0.1% of net assets at end-March), rising by EUR 9.6m compared to the previous month.

At the end of April 2024, net assets of MPFs amounted to EUR 21.1bn, decreasing by EUR 0.03bn (0.1%) relative to the previous month. The decrease in net assets in April was primarily due to negative market trends, which offset positive net monthly payments. Nominal monthly Mirex returns reached 1.0% for category A, -0.6% for category B and -0.1% for category C. Annual Mirex returns reached 13.0% for category A, 10.0% for category B and 3.8% for category C. Year-to-date returns reached 3.9% for category A, 2.8% for category B and 0.4% for category C, while annualised[1] returns since the beginning of MPFs’ operation reached 7.3% for Mirex A, 5.3% for Mirex B and 3.3% for Mirex C[2].

At the end of April, bond investments of MPFs totalled EUR 13.0bn (61.6% of total assets), making their share increase by 0.6 p.p. on a monthly basis. The share of equity investments in MPFs’ assets decreased by 0.3 p.p. on a monthly level, amounting to 23.2% of MPFs’ assets (EUR 4.9bn) at the end of April 2024. Investments in domestic shares accounted for 14.0%, while investments in foreign shares accounted for 9.2% of MPFs’ assets. Investments in investment funds amounted to EUR 2.1bn (10.1% of the assets), making the proportion of these investments in total assets decrease by 0.7 p.p. relative to the previous month. Investments in cash and deposits amounted to 4.3% of the assets, or EUR 910.2m.

THIRD PILLAR PENSION FUNDS

At the end of April 2024, the number of members of 8 open-ended voluntary pension funds (OVPFs) rose by 0.5% on a monthly basis, while the number of members of 21 closed-ended voluntary pension funds (CVPFs) increased by 0.1%, making the number of members of these funds reach 402,772 and 48,964 respectively. Total monthly payments made to voluntary pension funds (VPFs) in April 2024 amounted to EUR 9.7m (0.8% of net assets at end-March), while total payments made from these funds reached EUR 4.2m (0.3% of net assets at end-March). Total payments from VPFs made due to retirement and other reasons accounted for 70.5%, payments made due to the change of fund reached 22.9%, while those made due to death accounted for 6.6% of total payments in April. With respect to total payments made due to retirement, the amount of EUR 1.4m was paid through a pension company (fund), EUR 0.9m were paid in the form of lump-sum payments, while the amount of EUR 0.6m was transferred for payment to pension insurance companies.

In April, net assets of VPFs decreased by EUR 4.7m (0.4% on a monthly basis) and stood at EUR 1.3bn. Monthly nominal returns of VPFs ranged from -1.5% to 0.1%, while returns on an annual basis ranged from 3.5% to 16.0%. VPFs’ year-to-date returns ranged from 0.3% to 5.7%. As regards the investment structure of VPFs, the largest part of the portfolio was made up of bonds and amounted to a 54.9% share in total net assets, followed by stocks with a 26.0% share and investment funds with a 10.0% share. The share of bonds in VPFs’ investments increased on the monthly basis by 1.2 p.p., the equity share fell by 0.3 p.p., while the share of investments in investment funds decreased by 0.5 p.p.

INSURANCE COMPANIES

In April 2024, there were 14 insurance companies operating on the market. The total premium collected in the first four months of 2024 amounted to EUR 607.4m, of which EUR 104.4m (17.2%) related to life insurance premium and EUR 503.0m (82.8%) to non-life insurance premium. The structure of the non-life insurance premium collected is dominated by motor vehicle liability insurance (36.6%), followed by insurance of land vehicles (18.9%), and insurance against fire and natural disasters (9.4%). The amount of claims settled in the first four months of 2024 reached EUR 446.9m. EUR 173.3m (38.8%) of this amount relates to life insurance, while EUR 273.6m (61.2%) related to non-life insurance. In the total amount of claims settled in non-life insurance, the largest amounts related to motor vehicle liability insurance (40.7%), insurance of land motor vehicles (21.8%), and insurance against fire and natural disasters (10.3%).

CAPITAL MARKET

In April 2024, the total turnover on the Zagreb Stock Exchange reached EUR 26.7m, decreasing by 46.0% on a monthly basis. Market capitalisation fell by 1.0% relative to the previous month and stood at EUR 44.4bn, of which stocks amounted to EUR 24.5bn, bonds to EUR 18.0bn, money market instruments to EUR 1.8bn and ETFs to 38m. As regards sectoral stock indices, the largest monthly growth (3.2%) was recorded by CROBEXindustrija, while CROBEXturist recorded the largest monthly decline (-3.3%). The main stock index of the ZSE (CROBEX) also recorded a monthly decrease (1.0%), while CROBEXtr recorded a slight monthly growth (0.02%). Bond index CROBIS recorded a monthly increase (0.6%), same as CROBIStr (0.8%). Valamar Riviera d.d. was the stock most traded in April, with its turnover amounting to EUR 2.2m (12.3% of the overall trade in stocks in April) and a 1.9% monthly price decrease.

INVESTMENT FIRMS

In the first quarter of 2024, there were 22 legal entities authorised to provide investment services, namely 5 investment firms, 11 credit institutions and 6 investment fund management companies. The value of assets managed by investment firms increased by 24.8% on a monthly basis, while the value of assets managed by credit institutions i.e. investment fund management companies increased by 5.2% and 2.0% respectively. On an annual basis, the value of assets managed by legal entities authorised to provide investment services increased by: 5.3% (credit institutions), 11.8% (investment fund management companies) and 49.3% (investment firms). Total assets under custody of investment firms at the end of March 2024 stood at EUR 1.1bn, a 9.4% increase on a quarterly basis, while the assets under custody of credit institutions increased by 1.8% and reached EUR 19.5m.

INVESTMENT FUNDS

In April 2024, there were 111 UCITS operating on the market. Total net assets of UCITS amounted to EUR 2.6bn at the end of the month, increasing by EUR 45.5m or 1.8% compared to the previous month. Bond funds’ net assets accounted for 37.2% of the total net assets of all UCITS at the end of April, funds categorised as “other” accounted for 27.2%, while equity and balanced funds accounted for 16.0% and 6.0% of the total UCITS’ net assets respectively. In April 2024, all UCITS categories apart from money market funds recorded negative asset-weighted average monthly returns: equity funds (-1.0%), feeder funds (-1.9%), funds categorised as “other funds” (-0.5%), balanced funds (-1.1%) and bond funds (-0.3%). Positive asset-weighted average monthly returns were recorded only by money market funds (0.3%). At the end of April 2024, the asset-weighted average annual returns stood at 21.7% for equity funds, 7.0% for balanced funds, 5.0% for funds categorised as “other funds, 7.1% for feeder funds and 2.3% for bond funds.

Net assets of the Fund for Croatian Homeland War Veterans and Members of their Families amounted to EUR 163.9m (a 0.3% monthly increase), with the monthly return of the fund reaching 0.6%.

LEASING COMPANIES

In the first quarter of 2024, there were 15 leasing companies operating on the market. Their total assets stood at EUR 3.7bn, an increase of 21.3% on an annual basis. At the same time, the total profit recorded by leasing companies rose by 5.4% (EUR 18.3m) on an annual basis.  The outstanding contract value of active contracts recorded a 28.9% annual increase in operating lease, while its annual growth in finance lease reached 21.7%.  The value of newly concluded contracts in operating and finance lease rose by 30.9% and 27.8% respectively at an annual level.

FACTORING COMPANIES

In the first quarter of 2024, there were 3 factoring companies operating on the market. Their total assets amounted to EUR 20.0m, while their profit reached EUR 0.3m in the first quarter of 2024. The transaction volume was dominated by classic factoring totalling EUR 18.0m (88.3% of all transactions), as were receivables, with classic factoring amounting to EUR 10.5m (85.0% of the receivables) at the end of the first quarter of 2024.

The full report is available at Statistics/Monthly reports.


[1] The annualised return is the geometric average of annual returns realised in the period observed.

[2] Beginning of operation: MPF category B: 30/4/2002; MPFs category A and C: 21/08/2014

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