Kiribati has a National Provident Fund (KNPF) to which all employees are required to contribute; employer and employee each contribute 5% of gross salary/wage which can be drawn, plus annual interest accrued, when the official retirement age (50 years) is reached. This like all provident funds the KNPF is a defined contribution fund. There are provisions for members to access their balances as collateral for loans, and there are also other provisions for early access to member balances for specific approved purposes and circumstances, but there is no specific disability benefit. The KNPF has approximately 9.000 members of whom around one-third are women. It is understood KNPF has recently introduced a health insurance scheme.
The government also has a universal old-age non-contributory pension scheme for those over 70 years which reaches approximately 2.000 persons.
