Two thirds of Swedes who transferred their pension money did not know that they moved away from a savings account with a guarantee to a savings account without, research from KPA has revealed.

The analysis showed that more and more people are moving their pension money within a collectively agreed occupational pension, with the amount of capital moved almost doubling over the past five years.

In 2024, an individual within the municipal and regional sector moved an average of SEK 250,000.

According to the analysis, a large amount of these transfers move funds pre-selected companies to major banks.

However, the level of understanding around these transfers remains low, which KPA warned could lead to unfounded decisions that can lead to unwanted risk.

In addition to this, it found that one in three do not compare the options before a move.

This is perhaps unsurprising, given KPA found that, in many cases, the moves are initiated by advisers rather than by the customer himself, who often has a passive role in the move.

Transfers were also often linked to conditions, discounts around mortgages and other financial products.

But KPA suggested that pension transfers will continue to grow in future, noting that the new AKAP-KR pension agreement increases, among other things, the banks' incentive to process this customer group.

 Given this, it argued that the industry should do more to do better at informing about what differs between the various options.

In particular, KPA said that it must become easier to compare the different options.

This is particularly important given that KPA found that most pension transfers move from a traditional insurance to a unit-linked insurance, which usually means that the occupational pension is exposed to a higher risk.

KPA Pension head of parties and education, Fredrik Eklöf, said: "The right to move is good in itself, but requires that the actors become better at informing about the differences between the various options so that customers can make well-founded choices."

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