He Central Reserve Bank (BCR) expanded the AFP investment limit in instruments issued abroad by governments, companies and international organizations. With this measure, the maximum participation of foreign securities in the pension fund portfolio went from 50% to 50.5%, an increase of half a percentage point that, in monetary terms, is equivalent to US$176.7 million.
However, this increase would not result in greater demand for dollars by the AFPs to reach the limit. José Antonio Block, Variable Income manager at Prima AFP, anticipated that the impact of the BCR measure would be limited.
He explained that this adjustment is relatively small, so a significant effect is not expected on the AFPs’ demand for foreign currency or on the local exchange market.
Furthermore, he told Perú21 that any additional need for currency exposure could be offset through greater use of derivatives, thus reducing direct dollar purchases in the market.
Diversification
On the other hand, Block described the measure authorized by the BCR as good news because it will allow the AFPs to continue diversifying their pension savings portfolios, accessing a greater variety of markets, geographies and currencies.
This contributes to improving the risk-return profile of the long-term portfolios,” he commented.
Currently, 52.3% of pension funds are invested in local alternatives and 47.7% in foreign assets. By type of fund, fund 3 concentrates the greatest weight of foreign instruments, with 57% of its portfolio, followed by fund 2 (50%) and fund 1 (48.4%). In contrast, fund 0 maintains 100% of its investments in Peruvian assets.
The representative of Prima AFP detailed that, for much of 2025, the Private Pension System operated very close to the 50% limit; However, this percentage was recently reduced due to the good performance of local equities and the impact of the eighth withdrawal, which forced the AFPs to repatriate resources to meet payments.
In this context, he maintained that it is reasonable to expect that the participation of investments abroad will increase gradually, as the pension funds recover a structure closer to the one they had before the extraordinary withdrawal.
This, he specified, will depend both on the evolution of international markets and the performance of local assets and the allocation decisions of the AFPs themselves.
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