Voluntary Participation (IPS) Auto Enrollment System (AES) Funds Legislation Data Center

10 Good Reasons to Enter the IPS

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A Comfortable Retirement

The IPS has been created as a supplement to the social security system to increase your wealth by providing you with an additional income during retirement.

You can participate in the IPS by acquiring a pension product from your choice of pension company.

You will become vested for retirement after staying in the system for at least 10 years and after attaining the age of 56.

You will have three different pension choices when you have become vested for retirement: You can receive your accumulations in a lump-sum payment or as part of a reimbursement plan according to your preferences; alternatively, you can purchase an annuity contract to receive a retirement pension or distribute the amount in your account between the stated choices.

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Transparency

You can access your daily individual pension account information from the BES Mobile application, provided by the Pension Monitoring Center, which you can log in to via e-State or the password-protected page created for you on your pension company's website. Since your individual pension accounts are kept by the Istanbul Settlement and Custody Bank, you can also keep track of your daily fund shares from said Bank's accounts.

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Right to Choose the Fund

The pension company offers you a pension plan suitable for your pension expectations, income level and age. It is up to you to decide on the funds in which you wish to invest your contributions. If you do not choose any funds, your contributions shall be invested in the funds stipulated by the legislation.

Apart from the funds which your pension company offered to you, you can also choose the funds of other pension companies through the Pension Fund Trading Platform (BEFAS),  so you can invest your savings in the funds of other companies without changing your pension company.

You can change your fund distribution 12 times per year.

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State Contribution

A state contribution is paid into your account in the amount of up to 30 percent of the contributions you made to the IPS. A participant can benefit from the state contribution for the contribution payments up to the total amount of the gross minimum wage determined for the relevant year within a calendar year. The contribution amount to be paid in order to benefit from the 2024 state contribution upper limit is 240,030 TL. Contribution payments exceeding the aforementioned limit will be considered in the calculation of the State contribution as carryover contribution shares transferred to the company accounts on the first day of each year.

Separate State contribution limits have been set for the contracts within the scope of the AES and the IPS. In other words, based on the State contribution upper limits of the year 2024, an individual that is in both the voluntary IPS and the automatic enrollment system can benefit from the maximum annual State contribution amount by paying a contribution of 240,030 TL for both contracts separately

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Professional Fund Management

Your accumulations shall be managed by the portfolio management companies overseen by the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye.

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Purchasing Service from Licensed Intermediaries

Only licensed intermediaries can engage in the IPS promotion, marketing and sales activities. The professional competency of these intermediaries is tested with an exam conducted by the Pension Monitoring Center.

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Flexible Contribution Payments

In addition to your regular contributions, you can also make initial or additional contribution payments in interim periods to the IPS. You can also suspend contributing into your account anytime you wish.

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Transfer to Another Pension Company

If you wish, you can transfer your savings to another pension company at least two years after the effective date of your contract. The waiting period is one year for subsequent transfers.

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Tax Advantage for Employers

Employers can enter employees into the IPS by drawing up a group pension contract. In this case, the contributions paid on behalf of employees are recorded as expenses when calculating business income without associating them with the salary. You may determine the vesting period for the accumulations arising from contributions paid for the employees and from their earnings on the condition of not exceeding seven years. This is a good way to achieve employee motivation and loyalty to the company.

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Reliability

All elements of the system are under supervision. The operations of your pension company are supervised by the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency while the operations of the funds, portfolio managers and custodians are supervised by the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye. The company's accounts and transactions are subject to independent external audits at least once a year.

The Pension Monitoring Center monitors all pension companies' operations electronically on a daily basis.

Assets that belong to pension companies and to pension mutual funds are separate from each other. Fund assets cannot be pledged, used as collateral except for portfolio-related transactions, seized, or included in bankruptcy assets.

The Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency may impose sanctions against a pension company if the financial structure of the pension company is deemed to have been weakened to a level that may put the participants’ rights and interests in danger and if it is impossible to remedy the situation.

In the event of your death during the contract period, your accumulations and all of the state contributions in your account shall be paid to the beneficiaries stated in the pension contract or lawful heirs stated.

The investment return performance of pension mutual funds is monitored and assessed instantly with the Fund Performance Assessment System (FPAS). Procedures and principles have been determined that reward the managers of funds that achieved relatively high returns during the assessment period, and impose sanctions on the managers of relatively unsuccessful funds. The system is operated by the Pension Monitoring Center (PMC) with care and transparency and on the basis of the participation of all relevant stakeholders in all processes.