The Association of Pension Companies of the Czech Republic (APS) said the new pension scheme (DPS) was made up of more young people than older people.

The DPS has seen an increasing number of participants under 18, with the number of participants in this cohort increasing from 60,000 in 2019 to 160,000 in 2024.

Meanwhile, for people aged 18 to 26, the number of new contracts increased from 29,000 in 2019 to 44,000 in 2023.

APS also found that at the end of the third quarter of 2024, people had a total of CZK 604bn in their pension accounts.

The association also revealed that older funds manage CZK 390bn, while the new funds manage CZK 214bn.

Furthermore, the share of new funds in the total volume of funds in the system increased from 11.5 per cent to 35.5 per cent over the past five years.

"In terms of the age composition of participants, we see a positive shift: while in 2019 almost half of the participants in the DPS were people over 60, today it is not even a quarter," APS president, Aleš Poklop, said.

APS said this year’s legislative changes, inflation, and the success of dynamic and balanced funds, which contain an equity component, have led to the number of participants in the fund to soon exceed two million people.

In addition to this, APS said the system was “gradually rejuvenating” as some old-age pensioners are closing their accounts.

Over four million people in the Czech Republic have a pension plan and APS said soon there would be more investors than savers into pension funds.

This means more people would be participating in the new investment-based pension plans rather than the older, savings-based plans, which don’t offer the same investment opportunities.

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