Business
Stakeholders Discuss Effective Pension Management
Stakeholders in the finance and education sectors in Abuja have began discussions on ways of effectively managing pensions in the country.
The meeting is discussing “Manpower Development for Nigerian Universities and the Nigerian Pension Industry”.
The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, said yesterday that legislation alone could not drive the current process of Nigeria’s pensions management.
He said that adequate and proper manpower was required to work with the law to fill in current gaps in the administration of pension funds.
Okojie said the necessary machinery to enforce any policy ought to be put in place before such policies were brought to the fore.
He said the NUC identified gaps that could be properly addressed by the Nigerian University System.
“The Pension Reform Act of 2004 was a major shift to an era of coordinated pension management aimed at ensuring that each Nigerian worker, in both public and private sector, has a well defined plan for their retirement benefits through the mandatory Contributory Pension Scheme.
“Despite the noble idea behind the scheme, available evidence attests to the fact that its implementation has been fraught with weak institutional support and poor manpower administration.
“Presently, the value of assets under the scheme for both the public and private sectors is over N4.0 trillion, thus the urgency and expediency for stakeholders to evolve a mechanism which would promote the efficient management of the assets for the benefit of government and contributors,” he said.
According to him, NUC is conscious of its statutory responsibility and is determined to fast-track production of required manpower for the pension industry by developing actuarial scientists/ actuaries and linkages with highly ranked global institutions in the course training.
Okojie said the workshop would discuss modalities for raising the required fund from institutions, such as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), PenCOM, National Insurance Company and Central Bank of Nigeria for the training of postgraduate students to doctorate level in actuarial science.
He said other issues to be looked at were the review of the curriculum of study in line with current international trends, adoption of modalities for sustainable production of manpower for the pensions industry and identify trainees and partner institutions for staff training and exchange programmes.
In a keynote address, an actuary, Ambassador Godson Echegile, while commending PenCOM, noted that a lot needed to be done to ensure a wider coverage and sustained growth of the pension industry.
Echegile said there should be a plan to accommodate more workers in the scheme, especially those in the states civil service, address the issue of transition of contributors to the new scheme as well as non-remittance of deductions to PenCOM.
He listed the key manpower areas of the Pension Industry as accounting, law, insurance and actuarial science and urged participants to evolve ways of developing effective manpower from the fields.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.