The Superintendencia de Pensiones has published Normativa NCG N° 354, regulating the establishment and launch of new Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFPs), aligned with the 2025 pension reform. The norm raises the minimum capital requirement to UF 50,000 and sets experience standards for directors and investment executives, also applying to existing AFPs from April 2027.
The Superintendencia de Pensiones issued Normativa de Carácter General (NCG) N° 354 on Thursday, refining the regulatory framework for establishing a new Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP), in line with Law N° 21.735 approved by Congress in early 2025. This norm allows entities such as non-bank subsidiary AGFs, savings and credit cooperatives overseen by the CMF, and family allowance compensation funds supervised by the Suseso to form AFPs, provided they obtain prior approval from their sectoral regulator. Natural or legal persons, national or foreign, can also create them, but with the restriction that no single business group controls more than one AFP to promote competition and prevent conflicts of interest.
The minimum capital requirement has been raised to UF 50,000, compared to the previous initial UF 5,000 that increased up to UF 20,000 with 10,000 affiliates. The norm introduces experience requirements for directors and investment teams, applicable to existing AFPs by April 2027. The investment manager must have at least seven years of experience in asset management. The principal team and investment risk officer require five years each in entities managing at least US$1 billion. The majority of titular and alternate directors need five years of similar experience, down from the initial proposal of ten years for directors and seven for the team.
NCG N° 354 outlines requirements for founding shareholders based on their type, feasibility studies, net worth, organizational charts, and executive profiles. It includes a Gantt chart for implementation stages, noting that all functions can be subcontracted except investments. To start operations, new AFPs must have an established board, hired teams, operational procedures, technological infrastructure, and third-party contracts ready, plus policies on outsourcing, risk management, investments, and cybersecurity.