SSS profit up 14%

MANILA, Philippines - The Social Security System grew its net profit by 14 percent in the 10 months through October this year on the back of higher contributions from its members.

In a statement issued yesterday, the state pension fund said its net earnings from January to October reached P37.3 billion as members contributions rose 16.9 percent to P100 billion.

“Contributions, which constitute 77.5 percent of our total revenues, registered improved growth primarily due to the employed sector. We also noticed immediate improvement in collections after we implemented the new contribution rate and increased the monthly salary credit this year,” SSS president and CEO Emilio S. de Quiros Jr. said.
Employers remitted about P86.9 billion in employees’ contributions, followed by voluntary paying members at P8.6 billion, and self-employed at P4.5 billion.

De Quiros said the double-digit growth in collections was likewise driven by the highly successful AlkanSSSya program, which has covered 106,824 members from 1,061 informal sector groups and associations; intensified marketing campaigns for OFWs; and partnerships with 18 microfinance institutions, cooperatives and organized groups.
Revenues went up 13.2 percent to P129 billion.

 Investment and other income, which accounted for 22.5 percent of total revenues, inched up by 1.9 percent to P29 billion despite lower interest rates in the market.
“Profits slightly moved up with revenues posting an increment of 13.2 percent vis-a-vis expenditures of 13 percent. Significantly, we were able to keep our operations costs down while outperforming our target by 46 percent,” De Quiros said.