Statistical database

From now on, data about the breakdown of pension insurers’ investment assets, quarterly information on the investment distribution and returns of the largest earnings-related pension insurers as well as financial statement data can be obtained from our separate statistical database. Thanks to the database, you can select the statistical data of your choice for review and further processing, for example in Excel.

Use of the statistical database

The statistical database now offers the opportunity for more diverse and more flexible use of data on investment assets and quarterly information to everyone interested in such information. The database can be used to make the desired selections and to compile statistics based on them. The statistics obtained in this way can easily be processed further, for instance in Excel. Various figures can also be drawn up from the statistics, either directly with the tools provided by the database or with the help of Excel.

Use of the database is illustrated by an example search found in the user instructions, the Statistical Database User Guide.

The database works best when used with a browser other than Internet Explorer.
When the data in the statistical database are used, the Finnish Pension Alliance TELA must always be mentioned as the source.

The statistical database is available in Finnish, Swedish and English. The database has been implemented using the Swedish PxWeb system. This system is used by all of the statistical offices in the Nordic countries, including Statistics Finland and the Finnish Centre for Pensions.

Investment asset data in the database

The statistical database contains data on investment assets placed into funds by all insurers providing earnings-related pensions since 2004. Investment asset data are divided into three parts: by sector, by region and by pension provider group.

• Sector selection can be used to limit the review of investment assets to either the private or the public sector.
• Region selection allows examination of investment assets according to their geographical focus. The alternatives available are Finland, other euro area countries and non-euro area countries.
• Selecting pension provider groups allows the investment assets to be examined for a specific pension provider. The various pension provider groups are pension insurance companies, company pension funds and industry-wide pension funds, public-sector pension providers (Keva, State Pension Fund, Church Pension Fund, pension schemes of the Social Insurance Institution’s personnel, Bank of Finland’s Pension Fund) as well as the Seafarers’ Pension Fund (MEK) and Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution (Mela).

Investment asset data are not available for an individual pension provider, only for the pension provider groups described above.

Quarterly information in the database

The statistical database contains quarterly information on the investment breakdown and returns for the six largest earnings-related pension insurers starting from the year 2005. The six largest players are the pension insurance companies Elo, Ilmarinen, Varma and Veritas, as well as the public-sector players Keva and the State Pension Fund.

The quarterly information also includes data on bond durations starting from 2011 and the open currency position starting from 2017.

The quarterly information is distributed under five headings:

• basic asset breakdown
• risk-adjusted breakdown
• investment returns
• bond durations
• open currency positions.

The basic asset breakdown reveals the combined market value of investments and the breakdown of cash among the various investments.

The risk-adjusted asset breakdown, in turn, shows the market value of the investments when the effect of derivative positions is taken into account. The risk-adjusted breakdown thus describes the situation that can be achieved by modifying the asset-specific risk exposures of the basic asset breakdown by means of derivatives.

For 2005, the statistical database contains only data for the fourth quarter of the year. Data for 2006–2008 cover both the second and the fourth quarters. As of 2009, data are available for each of the four quarters of the year.

Financial statement data in the database

The statistical database contains key figures for all earnings-related pension insurers, as well as advanced financial statement figures for earnings-related pension insurance companies. The data corresponds to the figures in the Earnings-related Pension Insurers’ Financial Statement Data supplement.

The figures for the entire sector are divided according to the relevant pension legislation/organization. The data presented include the numbers of insured persons and pensioners, the insured salary amount, income and expenses, as well as the distribution of pension assets among key investment classes. For private-sector pension insurers, they include key solvency figures.

Data about pension insurance companies are more advanced than this: they also include a breakdown and distribution of total operating expenses, technical provisions, profit or loss for the financial year, transfers to customer rebates as well as figures related to solvency capital.

The database consists of financial statement data from 2007.

Updating the database data

We update the data on investment assets contained in the statistical database on a quarterly basis, always approximately two months after the end of the previous quarter.

• Amount of assets on 31 March (Q1): updated at the turn of May–June.
• Amount of assets on 30 June (Q2): updated at the turn of August–September.
• Amount of assets on 30 September (Q3): updated at the turn of November–December.
• Amount of assets on 31 December (Q4): updated at the turn of February–March.

Every quarter we also update the quarterly information on the breakdown of investments and returns. The update is made for the six largest pension providers at the same time, once they all have published their own quarterly information.

We add new financial statement data to our database annually at the beginning of June. We first publish the data as a supplement to the Työeläke magazine of the Finnish Centre for Pensions and then add them to our database.

Additional information:

Responsibility for maintaining the statistical database rests with our analytical operations experts, Statistical Planner Maija Schrall and Analyst Kimmo Koivurinne.