Pension ownership increases by 17%, CCPC finds

Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) have revealed a significant increase of 17% in pensions ownership since 2025.

This follows the introduction of the MyFutureFund, the new automatic enrolment pension scheme, and this has been identified as a key factor for the increase.

The fund has over 835,000 participants and over €500,000,000 has been collected from people and will be available to draw down once they reach State pension age.

The CCPC also found significant gender gaps in how men and women prepare for and think of retirement. Almost one quarter of women have no retirement plans in place, compared with 17% of men.

Gráinne Griffin, Director of Financial Education at the CCPC and Ireland’s first Financial Literacy Ambassador, said:

“Our research shows that consumers avoid reviewing their pension statements and too often are not confident that their pension will allow a good standard of living in retirement. We are encouraging consumers, particularly women, to review their pension and remind them that they don’t need to do it alone.

“Pension statements can be long, complicated and hard to understand so it’s very easy to just avoid them. But you don’t need to become an expert – book a short review with a financial planner or a financial advisor to check that your pension arrangements are suitable for both your current budget and your future hopes and dreams.

“Employers also play a powerful role in their employees financial wellbeing. For those consumers who have sat down with a financial adviser and discussed their retirement plans, our research shows that they’re most likely to have been connected to that financial adviser by their employer. Also, employers that offer to match higher pension contributions make employees much more likely to increase their own level of investment in their pension.”

The CCPC say that most consumers have never had a one to one conversation with a financial advisor about retirement. The research found a low level of understanding of how pensions work among private pension holders.

Dermot Griffin, CEO of the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA), said:

“I welcome the findings in the CCPC report. This is great news for workers in Ireland and reflects the positive impact since the introduction of MyFutureFund in January 2026.

“By the end of August over 800,000 participants were enrolled in MyFutureFund, with new participants joining each week. In addition, over 10,000 people have opted in to MyFutureFund since 1 January 2026. Retirement savings of over €550 million have been invested on behalf of participants.

“I want to express my thanks to everyone that has helped ensure auto-enrolment and retirement saving has become a normal part of people’s working lives.”