Nordea Liv has announced its decision to delay de-risking pension savers’ investment portfolios by five years, after it posted strong quarter three (Q3) results.

The automatic reduction in equities previously began from age 55 but this has now been adjusted upwards to age 60.

“We see that more and more people are choosing to take out their pension later, and therefore we are changing the start time for the automatic tapering. By waiting to taper until the age of 60, the paid pension can increase by 16 per cent for an employee with around 25 years of pension savings. It will amount to large sums for our customers,” Nordea CEO, Hans-Erik Lind, said.

To meet individual needs, it will still be possible to both speed up and postpone the reduction of equities so that each individual can adapt the reduction to their specific retirement age.

“We know that freedom of choice and the opportunity to make personalised choices is important to our customers. Although this solution will benefit most people, we all have different prerequisites and different needs – so everyone can feel confident that they can still start tapering when they want,” he said.

The move comes as Nordea Liv posted strong Q3 results. Its before-tax profit for Q3 was NOK 1,282m, compared to NOK 884m in the corresponding period last year. The capital under management was NOK 245bn as of 30 September, an increase of 14 per cent since the turn of the year.

“It is always a pleasure to see strong results, but there is no time to rest. Our focus is to offer safe solutions and personal advice which means that customers continue to be satisfied with us,” Lind said.

During Q3, Nordea Liv entered into an agreement with the professional organisation NITO to deliver services to NITO's over 100,000 members for a five-year period.

“This agreement ensures NITO members a wide range of pension and savings offers with market-leading conditions, and we look forward to welcoming them,” says Lind.

In addition, Nordea’s Egen Pensjonskonto (EPK) – own pension account – exceeded 30,000 EPK agreements by the end of September.

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