Finnish earnings-related pension provider Veritas made a return of 8.4 per cent on its investments in 2024, equivalent to €4.8bn.

Publishing its full-year results, Veritas' fixed income investments returned 6.7 per cent (7.8 per cent 2023), equity investments 12.7 per cent (8.7 per cent 2023), real estate investments -0.7 per cent (-4.1 per cent) and other investments 7.9 per cent (4.8 per cent 2023). In the last quarter of the year, investment income was 1.5 per cent.

Veritas CIO, Laura Wickström, said: "Last year was a good year for investing. The strong economic growth in the United States was a surprise to the market, and at the beginning of the year, the development of the Finnish and European stock markets also looked promising, but this did not materialise. There was a wide geographical spread in equity returns, especially in the last quarter.”

However, Veritas noted that domestic property investments were in the red for the second year, but Wickström believes that 2025 “looks brighter, if interest rates continue to fall” as it will have a “positive impact on the property market and prices may finally start to rise”.

According to Wickström, the year has started positively on the investment market, with European equities, in particular, performing well.

"The return on the Helsinki Stock Exchange was zero last year, but Finnish equities have performed well at the beginning of the year. However, geopolitical threats and the escalating trade war may lead to market fluctuations,” she said.

Veritas CEO, Carl Haglund, also spoke about the Finnish pension reforms that were agreed at the end of January by the labour market organisations and approved by the government. The most important change relates to the investment of earnings-related pension assets, as the reform allows pension providers to increase the share of equities in their investment portfolios.

"Increasing the equity weighting increases the likelihood of higher investment returns in the long term, but it also increases the variability of returns. So, in bad times, returns may be worse than today and in good times correspondingly better than today," Haglund explained

Veritas' solvency at the end of the year was 1.4 times (1.6 times in 2023) the solvency limit. The solvency ratio was 123.4 (122.2) per cent.

During the year, Veritas took on more than 6,800 (compared to 5,100 in 2023) new TyEL and YEL insurance policies. Measured in euros, the new premiums written totalled over €165.9m (€108.2m in 2023). At the end of the year, almost 71,000 employees and 16,000 entrepreneurs were insured with Veritas.

"In terms of customer acquisition, 2024 broke all previous records. Veritas' sales increased by more than 50 per cent compared to last year," Haglund said.

Veritas' premiums written increased by 7 per cent year-on-year to €774.6m (€724.1m in 2023) million. The TyEL payroll of companies insured by Veritas grew by €6.9 per cent (4.4 per cent in 2023) during the year.

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