Norway’s finance ministry has asked the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanstilsynet, FSA) to investigate whether a pensions-gathering scheme introduced four years ago can now be extended to include hybrid, or partly defined benefit (DB), pensions as well as defined contribution (DC) pensions.
Known as “individual pension account” (egen pensjonskonto), the existing system allows an individual’s DC pensions accrual from different employments to be managed collectively, with people choosing their employer’s pension provider or another firm to manage the pension.
In a recent press statement the finance ministry said it was now requesting that Finanstilsynet study how a similar system could be designed for so-called hybrid schemes, explaining that hybrid schemes combined characteristics of savings-based DC schemes with those of insurance-based DB schemes.
“The study shall, as far as possible, safeguard the premises and objectives already established in the separate pension account for defined contribution pension schemes, and the special characteristics of hybrid schemes,” the ministry said, setting a 1 March 2026 deadline for the study.
In its 2025 Financial Market Report, the finance ministry said that after the introduction of individual pension accounts, new players and challengers had emerged, competing on price and other terms.
“A separate pension account also contributes to a simpler and better overview of the pension savings for the individual, in addition to the fact that lower costs can provide more pension for every krone saved,” it said.
Hybrid schemes, as opposed to DC schemes, it said, had different rules for handling return and life expectancy risks, and different cost distribution.
Although hybrid schemes had limited scope compared with DC schemes, the ministry said their insurance obligations had increased by 20% between 2023 and 2024 to NOK17.3bn (€1.45bn), with members of hybrid schemes numbering around 71,000 at the end of last year. The figures are from Finance Norway.
The smaller scope meant there was less potential for cost savings in introducing separate pension accounts for hybrid schemes than there had been for DC schemes, the ministry said.
But it added: “The considerations of facilitating competition, the individual’s ability to have an overview of and influence over their own pension and more efficient management of the individual’s pension capital nevertheless also apply to hybrid schemes.”
