SSS reports 14% profit growth

The end-October profit of state-run Social Security System (SSS) grew by 14 percent to P37.3 billion on the back of double-digit growth in members’ contributions.

In a statement, SSS president and chief executive Emilio S. de Quiros Jr. said collections jumped by 16.9 percent year-on-year to P100 billion in the first 10 months.

“Contributions, which constitute 77.5 percent of our total revenue, registered improved growth primarily due to the employed sector. We also noticed immediate improvement in collections after we implemented the new contribution rate and increased the monthly salary credit this year,” de Quiros explained.

From January to October, employers paid P86.9-billion to complement employees’ contributions. Voluntary-paying members and the self-employed contributed P8.6 billion and P4.5 billion, respectively.

SSS also attributed the end-October increase in collections to its “AlkanSSSya” program, which added 106,824 members from 1,061 informal sector groups, microfinance institutions and cooperatives, as well as overseas Filipino workers.

At the end of the first 10 months, SSS’ revenue climbed 13.2 percent to P129 billion. Amid a low interest rate environment, investment and other income—which account for 22.5 percent of revenue—rose a mere 1.9 percent to P29 billion.

“Profits slightly moved up with revenues posting an increment of 13.2 percent vis-à-vis expenditures of 13 percent. Significantly, we were able to keep our operations costs down while outperforming our target by 46 percent,” de Quiros said.

Expenditures—payments of benefits and operating expenses combined—reached P91.7 billion as of end-October.