BUMN Pension Fund Time Bomb: Pos Indonesia Faces Nearly Rp4 Trillion Funding Shortfall
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s BUMN pension funds are facing significant funding challenges, with Danantara moving to overhaul their management and governance. One of the most serious cases involves the pension fund of state-owned postal company Pos Indonesia, which has a funding shortfall of nearly Rp4 trillion.
According to CNBC Indonesia, Danantara is working to improve the governance of pension funds at state-owned enterprises, particularly those operating under a defined-benefit scheme. Under this system, companies remain responsible for covering any shortfall if pension fund investments fail to generate sufficient returns to meet promised benefits.
Danantara’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Head of the BUMN Regulatory Agency (BP BUMN), Dony Oskaria, said pension funds remain one of the major issues that need to be addressed. However, Danantara has yet to determine the total funding gap across all BUMN pension funds.
Dony explained that pension funds generally operate under two schemes: defined contribution and defined benefit. Under a defined-contribution scheme, the sponsoring company does not bear the investment risk once contributions have been made.
The situation is different under a defined-benefit scheme, where the company guarantees the pension benefits that employees will receive after retirement.
Dony said investment management is therefore crucial under the defined-benefit model. Poor investment management can result in insufficient funds to cover promised benefits, forcing the sponsoring company to inject additional funds.
“The essence is investment management. If the investments are managed carelessly and the benefits received by beneficiaries or retirees are insufficient, the sponsor is obligated to make a top-up. The amount is quite substantial,” Dony said on CNBC Indonesia’s Squawk Box program on Monday (Aug. 24, 2026).
He cited Pos Indonesia as an example of the problem facing BUMN pension funds. According to Dony, the company’s pension fund currently has a funding shortfall of nearly Rp4 trillion that must be covered by the company.
“For example, at Pos Indonesia, we have a shortfall of nearly Rp4 trillion, for a single company, which we have to top up. What is the problem? The investments were not managed properly. So, essentially, the problem is the same,” he said.
To prevent similar problems from recurring, Danantara is working on reforms to the management of BUMN pension funds. The measures include establishing standards and requirements for pension fund managers, as well as setting rules governing permitted investment instruments and portfolios.
In the longer term, Danantara also plans to shift BUMN pension funds away from defined-benefit schemes toward defined-contribution schemes.
Dony said the shift would allow companies to better predict their future pension-related costs and reduce the risk of unexpected funding obligations.
“In the long term, we are already thinking that BUMNs should no longer prioritize defined benefits. We prefer defined contributions, so we can be more predictable and know how much it will cost to provide pensions,” Dony said.
The issue of BUMN pension funds is not new. In 2023, the governance of state-owned pension funds came under scrutiny after 22 of 48 BUMN pension funds operating defined-benefit programs were reported to have funding adequacy ratios below 100%.
The ratio measures a pension fund’s ability to meet its obligations to participants. At the time, the funding shortfall among the 22 pension funds was estimated at around Rp12 trillion to Rp13 trillion based on calculations by the Ministry of BUMN and the Financial Services Authority (OJK).
