Germany: the “Riester pension” is approaching the 8.5 million contracts mark

The complementary pension via capitalization adopted in 2002 is appealing to more and more Germans. After a sluggish start, the number of subscribers keeps increasing. For the first trimester of 2007, 620,000 new contracts were signed. (Ref. 070444)
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Walter Riester, Gerhard Schröder’s former Labor Secretary, after whom this complementary pension via capitalization was named, must be retrospectively delighted. Until 2005, the Riester pension had appealed to hardly over 3 million people. Since, it boomed. At the end of the first trimester of 2007, private insurers managing the Riester pension counted 8.49 million subscribers. On May 15, 2007, the Central for the payment of pension benefits (Zentrale Zulagenstelle für Altersvermögen – ZfA,) op

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