Euro area pension fund statistics: third quarter of 2020

5 January 2021

• Total assets of euro area pension funds amounted to €3,019 billion in third quarter of 2020, €70 billion higher than in second quarter of 2020
• Total pension entitlements of euro area pension funds rose to €2,741 billion in third quarter of 2020, up €21 billion from second quarter of 2020

Total assets of euro area pension funds increased to €3,019 billion in the third quarter of 2020, from €2,949 billion in the second quarter of 2020. Investment fund shares accounted for 45.7% of the pension funds sector's total assets in the third quarter of 2020. The second largest category of holdings was debt securities (25.6%), followed by equity (8.7%) (see respective transactions in Chart 1).

Holdings of investment fund shares increased to €1,380 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2020 from €1,324 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Net purchases of investment fund shares amounted to €29 billion in the third quarter of 2020, while price and other changes amounted to €27 billion. Looking at the main type of investment fund shares, equity fund shares totalled €415 billion, with net purchases of €3 billion.

Turning to pension funds' holdings of debt securities, these increased to €774 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2020 from €749 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Net purchases of debt securities amounted to €21 billion in the third quarter of 2020, while price and other changes amounted to €4 billion. Looking at equity on the assets side, euro area pension funds' holdings increased marginally to €264 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2020, from €263 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Net purchases of equity stood at €5 billion in the third quarter of 2020, while price and other changes stood at -€4 billion.

Chart 1

Transactions in main assets of euro area pension funds in the third quarter of 2020

(quarterly transactions in EUR billions; not seasonally adjusted)

Data for main assets of euro area pension funds

In terms of the main liabilities, total pension entitlements of pension funds amounted to €2,741 billion in the third quarter of 2020, up from €2,720 billion in the second quarter of 2020. Defined benefit pension schemes amounted to €2,294 billion, accounting for 83.7% of total pension entitlements. Defined contribution pension schemes totalled €447 billion, accounting for 16.3% of total pension entitlements in the third quarter of 2020. Net purchases of defined benefit schemes amounted to €14 billion in the third quarter of 2020, while those of defined contribution schemes came to €1 billion. Price and other changes of total pension entitlements amounted to €6 billion.

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Notes:

• "Defined benefit schemes" includes hybrid schemes.
• "Investment funds" includes money market funds and non-money market funds.
• Hyperlinks in the main body of the statistical release and in the annex table lead to data that may change with subsequent releases as a result of revisions. Figures shown in the annex table are a snapshot of the data as at the time of the current release.