March 2023 Monthly Report
Overview of supervised entities’ activities in the financial services sector for March 2023
PENSION FUNDS
SECOND PILLAR PENSION FUNDS
At the end of March 2023, mandatory pension funds (MPFs) had 2,191,508 members, i.e. 3,995 (0.18%) members more than in the previous month. Category B funds had 84.7% of all MPF members, while category A and category C funds had 11.3% and 4.0% of all MPF members respectively. Out of 4,743 new members, 4,591 (96.8%) were automatically allocated by Regos. Termination of membership due to retirement or death was recorded with respect to 748 insured persons. Total net contributions paid to MPFs in March amounted to EUR 98.6m (0.6% of net assets at the end of February). At the same time, total payments from all MPFs due to personal account closures reached EUR 11.9m (0.1% of net assets at the end of February), increasing by 3.6% compared to the previous month).
At the end of March 2023, net assets of MPFs amounted to EUR 18.2bn, rising by EUR 172.2m (1.0%) relative to the previous month. Nominal monthly Mirex returns reached 1.0% for category A, 0.4% for category B and 0.6% for category C. Annual Mirex returns reached 2.1% for category A, -1.0% for category B and -2.7% for category C, while annualised[1] returns since the beginning of MPFs’ operation stood at 6.7% for Mirex A, 5.0% for Mirex B and 3.2% for Mirex C[2].
At the end of March, bond investments of MPFs totalled EUR 11.7bn (64.1% of total assets), making their share increase by 1.6 p.p. on a monthly basis. The share of equity investments in MPFs’ assets increased by 0.1 p.p. on a monthly basis, amounting to 21.5% of MPFs’ assets (EUR 3.9bn). Investments in domestic shares accounted for 12.7%, while investments in foreign shares accounted for 8.8% of MPFs’ assets. As regards other investment types, investments in investment funds amounted to EUR 2.1bn (11.4% of their assets), making the proportion of these investments in total assets remain the same relative to the previous month. Investments in cash and deposits amounted to 2.2% of the assets, or EUR 407.8m.
THIRD PILLAR PENSION FUNDS
At the end of March 2023, 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 378,250 and 47,663 respectively. Total monthly payments made to voluntary pension funds (VPFs) in March 2023 amounted to EUR 8.9m (0.8% of their net assets at end-February 2023), increasing by EUR 0.2m compared to the previous month. Total payments made from these funds reached EUR 4.9m, decreasing by EUR 0.8m (13.2%) compared to total payments made from VPFs in the previous month. Total payments from VPFs made due to retirement and other reasons accounted for 73.9%, payments made due to the change of fund reached 18.8%, while those made due to death accounted for 7.2% of total payments in March. As regards total payments made due to retirement, the amount of EUR 1.5m was paid in the form of lump-sum payments, EUR 1.0m was transferred to pension insurance companies, while EUR 1.1m was paid through a pension company (fund).
In March 2023, net assets of VPFs rose by EUR 9.0m (0.8% on a monthly basis) and stood at EUR 1.1bn. Monthly nominal returns of VPFs ranged from -1.2% to 0.8%, while returns on an annual basis ranged from -10.0% to 1.2%. As regards the investment structure of VPFs, the largest part of the portfolio was made up of bonds and amounted to a 55.0% share in total net assets, followed by stocks with a 25.7% share and investment funds with a 12.1% share. The share of bonds in VPFs’ investments increased on the monthly basis by 0.4 p.p., the equity share rose by 0.2 p.p., while the share of investments in investment funds decreased by 0.1 p.p.
CAPITAL MARKET
The total turnover on the Zagreb Stock Exchange reached EUR 28.1m in March 2023, increasing by 29.3% on a monthly basis. Market capitalisation increased by 5.5%, relative to the previous month and stood at EUR 37.7bn, of which stocks amounted to EUR 19.9bn, bonds to EUR 17.9bn and ETFs to 9m. As for stock indices, the largest monthly rise was recorded by CROBEXtransport (6.0%), while CROBEXkonstrukt recorded the largest monthly decrease (-11.3%). The main stock index of the ZSE (CROBEX) recorded a monthly rise (0.4%), while CROBEX10 recorded a 0.4% monthly fall. The CROBIS bond index decreased slightly (by 0.01%), while CROBIStr rose by 0.2%. SPAN d.d. was again the stock most traded in March, with its turnover amounting to EUR 3.4m (13.7% of the overall stock trade in March) and a 11.3% monthly price increase.
INVESTMENT FUNDS
In March 2023, there were 100 UCITS operating on the market, the same as in the previous month. Their total net assets amounted to EUR 2.0bn at the end of the month, decreasing by EUR 77.7m or 3.7% compared to the previous month. Total monthly net payments of all UCITS reached EUR -82.1m, primarily due to large negative net payments made to bond funds (EUR -88.5m). Negative monthly net payments were also recorded by balanced funds (EUR -6.9m) and feeder funds (EUR -2.0m). Positive monthly net payments were recorded by bond funds (EUR 2.7m) and funds categorised as “other” (EUR 12.7m). Bond funds’ net assets accounted for 48.9% of the total net assets of all UCITS at the end of March, while equity and balanced funds accounted for 14.5% and 14.1% of the total UCITS’ net assets respectively. In March 2023, all UCITS recorded positive asset-weighted average monthly returns, namely balanced and “other” funds 1.1%, equity funds 0.6%, bond funds 0.4%, and feeder funds 0.3%.
The assets of the Fund for Croatian Homeland War Veterans and Members of their Families amounted to EUR 135.9m (a monthly decrease of 0.7%), with the monthly return of the fund reaching -0.5%.
The full report is available at Publications/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
