Unclaimed retirement benefits ended 2024 almost exactly where they started in 2022

Unclaimed retirement fund benefits rose by R2.85 billion to reach R55.34 billion in 2023, suggesting new inflows were outpacing payouts. But by 2024 the figure had retreated to R52.81 billion — almost exactly where it stood two years earlier, with a net gain of just R320 million across the full period. The FSCA therefore cannot point to consistent accumulation, and acknowledges it lacks the granular fund-level data to explain the fluctuations — the very data gap that National Treasury's August 2026 centralisation proposal is designed to close.