GSIS nets P94B in 2017
THE Government Service Insurance System’s (GSIS) net income in 2017 increased by 69 percent to P94.7 billion from P56.1 billion the year before.
In a statement on Friday, the state-run pension fund credited much of the growth to the “income from financial assets, which almost doubled [to]P59.1 billion [from]P30.2 billion…in 2016.”
The increase came from gains on the valuation of traded stocks for 2017, which reached P37.3 billion, reversing the P516.2-million loss the year before.
GSIS noted that the stock market had a stellar year in 2017, as Philippine equities posted a record high of 8,558.4 points.
Income from insurance climbed to P107.2 billion on the back of contributions of members, whose number reached 1,712,173 at the end of last year.
Revenue from loans rose by 5 percent to P24.6 billion from P23.4 billion in 2016.
On expenditures, GSIS said it had paid close to P94 billion in social insurance claims and benefits, an 8-percent increase from P87.1 billion two years ago.
Total assets went up by 9 percent to P1.1 trillion, it added.
According to GSIS President and General Manager Jesus Clint Aranas, his agency will focus this year on plugging financial leaks to protect its returns and manage its expenses to generate savings.
Earlier this year, GSIS implemented a program to check which of its pensioners are still alive—a move aimed at curbing the overpayment of pensions, now about P1.6 billion.
Called the Annual Pensioners’ Information Revalidation, the program requires all GSIS senior and survivorship pensioners to appear personally at any GSIS office or use the GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System kiosk to activate their status and ensure that they keep receiving their pensions.
“We are also diversifying our investments to improve the returns of our portfolio. It is never good to put all our eggs in one basket,” Aranas said.
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