Greater interest in Afores

MEXICO CITY (El Universal).— The creation of the Pension Fund for Welfare has sparked the interest of workers who want to know where their savings are.

The fear that this money would be part of this “bag” led to an increase in calls and approaches to the Retirement Fund Administrators (Afore) to find out how to take care of the resources.

“Something that has been positive, in all this fuss that was generated with the Fund for Pension for Welfare, is precisely that many people who did not know they had a right, who did not know about their account, are getting informed. I am pleased to see that many people are looking at the Afore and seeing that they have an account with resources. That is good news, that families are realizing that they have that patrimony, which is not minor in many cases,” said the vice president of liaison of the Mexican Association of Retirement Fund Administrators (Amafore), Mari Nieves Lanzagorta, at the Cartera analysis table in El Universal.

On this point, Virginia Ríos Hernández, a member of the Technical Commission for Fiscal Investigation of the College of Public Accountants of Mexico, agreed, recalling that in some cases it will be difficult to recover resources, whether from workers who contributed at some point in Mexico and emigrated to the United States, or the beneficiaries of an account holder who has died.

Diffusion

“At this time, given the publicity that has been given to the issue, many people have wondered whether or not they have balances. Many people have approached public accountants and other organizations to ask how they can recover the resource,” said the expert. “Since February, there has been a lot of interaction in the media to make the general public aware of this new mechanism. Many of the workers and beneficiaries were not aware that they had this right, that their funds could be recovered.”

In addition to the noise generated by the Welfare Pension Fund, the challenge for the Afores for years has been to ensure that workers know that they have money managed by them.

Data from the National Commission for Retirement Savings (Consar) show that 18 million accounts have no owner.

The 2024 Afore fair concluded yesterday in Mexico City’s Zócalo, where workers attended the different modules to learn about basic topics such as which Afore I am in, to how to prevent savings from going to the Pension Fund for Welfare.

One of these cases is that of Sebastián, 75 years old, who was recently notified by his Afore that he had money in an account and, due to inactivity in the account, the funds were transferred to this public trust.

The worker attended the event organized by Consar, where, like thousands of people, he waited patiently in long lines to be served at the different modules of government agencies and the Afore.

“They already informed me that they transferred the money. I came to do the paperwork so that Afore Azteca can request the refund and then they will notify me so I can get it,” he said.

In his opinion, a greater effort is needed to communicate about the issue of Afores and, in general, about the resources that a worker who has at some point been in the formal sector can have.

“I found out that I had this money by accident. I didn’t know. I worked almost all my life on my own and for about 10 years I was in companies and I generated a certain amount,” he said.

Return

In the case of workers who have died and whose beneficiaries have not been designated, the return of savings can take years. However, the federal government and the Afores remind that the creation of the Welfare Pension Fund respects the imprescriptibility of resources, that is, the money claimed will return to the pockets of the account holder.

“It is a challenge for the Afore and families and we understand that it can even be frustrating for many,” said Mari Nieves Lanzagorta.

IMSS data provided at the opening of the 2024 Afore fair, detail that, a few days after the launch of this trust, pension supplements have been granted to 448 workers, with an average amount of 4 thousand pesos.

With these resources, the pension received by beneficiaries increased from 57% to 96% of their last salary.

For its part, the Treasury Department reported that next month it will begin to return funds to workers who completed the procedure and who have detected that their money was transferred to the Welfare Pension Fund.