By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Feb. 27 (PNA) — The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) reported on Friday a 215.8 percent hike in its net income in 2014 to PhP 140 billion from year-ago’s PhP 44.3 billion.
In a briefing, GSIS President and General Manager Robert Vergara attributed the huge rise in their net income to the continued improvement in the agency’s collection efficiency as well as the performance of the country’s equity and fixed income markets, where GSIS has placed some funds.
”2014 is a record-year for GSIS even without the boost that we got from the fair value accounting of our financial assets,” he said.
To date, 48 percent of GSIS’ investable funds are placed in fixed income securities, 26 percent in members’ loans, 17 percent in equities and four percent in real estate while the balance of five percent is in cash.
Relatively, Vergara said their revenues last year totalled to PhP 231.5 billion, nearly twice the PhP 135 billion they got in the previous year.
The state pension fund’s assets currently amount to PhP 910 billion, 15.6 percent higher than PhP 788 billion in end-2013.
Vergara declined to give a profit-guidance for 2015, citing the challenges such as the uptick in their disbursement of payments of claims and benefits to their members vis-à-vis the implementation of rationalization plan of the government.
Last year, GSIS paid a total of PhP 84.2 billion in claims and benefits to members and pensioners.
”The goal for this year is to sustain this momentum so that we can continue to provide responsive service and benefits to our 1.8 million members and stakeholders,” Vergara added. (PNA)