December 2024 Monthly Report
Overview of supervised entities’ activities in the financial services sector for December 2024

PENSION FUNDS
SECOND PILLAR PENSION FUNDS
At the end of December 2024, mandatory pension funds (MPFs) had 2,333,992 members, i.e., 6,031 (0.26%) members more than in the previous month. Category B funds had 77.5% of all MPF members, while category A and category C funds had 18.4% and 4.1% of all MPF members respectively. Out of 8,230 new members, 8,023 (97.5%) were automatically allocated by Regos. Termination of membership due to retirement or death was recorded with respect to 2,199 insured persons. Total net contributions paid to MPFs in December amounted to EUR 135.3m (0.6% of net assets at end-November). At the same time, total payments from all MPFs due to personal account closures reached EUR 41.9m (0.2% of net assets at end-November), falling by EUR 5.6m compared to the previous month. Total net contributions paid to MPFs in 2024 amounted to EUR 1.5bn, i.e., 20.7% more compared to the previous year. Total payments from all MPFs due to personal account closures reached HRK 398.4m on an annual level, rising by 33.1% compared to 2023.
At the end of December 2024, net assets of MPFs amounted to EUR 23.2bn, rising by EUR 157.5m (0.7%) relative to the previous month. They increased by EUR 3.0bn (14.8%) on an annual level. Nominal monthly Mirex returns reached 0.28% for category A, 0.33% for category B and 0.30% for category C. Annual Mirex returns reached 13.27% for category A, 9.68% for category B and 3.55% for category C, while annualised[1] returns since the beginning of MPFs’ operation reached 7.74% for Mirex A, 5.40% for Mirex B and 3.38% for Mirex C[2].
At the end of December, bond investments of MPFs totalled EUR 14.1bn (60.8% of total assets), making their share increase by 0.3 p.p. on a monthly basis, while on an annual basis there was a decline of 2.2 p.p. The share of equity investments in MPFs’ assets increased by 0.1 p.p. on a monthly basis, i.e., 0.9 p.p. an annual basis, amounting to 23.1% of MPFs’ assets (EUR 5.4bn) at the end of December. Investments in domestic shares accounted for 14.2%, while investments in foreign shares accounted for 8.9% of MPFs’ assets. Investments in investment funds amounted to EUR 2.4bn (10.5% of the assets), making the proportion of these investments in total assets decrease by 0.1 p.p. relative to the previous month, while this decrease reached 0.2 p.p. on an annual level. Investments in cash and deposits amounted to 4.1% of the assets, or EUR 955.3m, increasing by 0.3 p.p. on a monthly basis and 0.8 p.p. on an annual basis.
THIRD PILLAR PENSION FUNDS
At the end of December 2024, the number of members of 8 open-ended voluntary pension funds (OVPFs) rose by 0.8% on a monthly basis, while the number of members of 21 closed-ended voluntary pension funds (CVPFs) rose by 0.6%, making the number of members of these funds reach 417,157 and 49,609 respectively. Total monthly payments made to voluntary pension funds (VPFs) in December 2024 amounted to EUR 64.6m (3.2% of net assets at end-November), increasing by 266.6% compared to the previous month. On an annual level, total payments made to VPFs amounted to EUR 157.0m, increasing by 15.6m (11.0%) compared to 2023. Total payments made from these funds reached EUR 5.3m in December, increasing by 20.2% on a monthly basis. On an annual level, total payments made from VPFs reached EUR 56.5m, increasing by 19.0% relative to 2023. Total payments from VPFs made due to retirement and other reasons accounted for 72.8%, payments made due to the change of fund reached 22.3%, while those made due to death accounted for 4.9% of total payments in December. As regards total payments made due to retirement, the amount of EUR 1.7m was paid through a pension company (fund), EUR 1.3m were transferred for payment to pension insurance companies, while EUR 0.9m were paid in the form of lump-sum payments.
In October 2024, net assets of VPFs increased by EUR 41.9m (3.0% on a monthly basis) and stood at EUR 1.44bn. On an annual basis, net assets of VPFs rose by 14.8% in 2024. Monthly nominal returns of VPFs ranged from -0.4% to 0.7%, while returns on an annual basis ranged from 3.1% to 12.4%. As regards the investment structure of VPFs, the largest part of the portfolio was made up of bonds and amounted to a 55.3% share in assets, followed by stocks with a 24.9% share and investment funds with a 10.2% share. The share of bonds in VPFs’ investments decreased on the monthly basis by 0.3 p.p., the equity share fell by 0.5 p.p., while the share of investments in investment funds decreased by 0.3 p.p.
INSURANCE COMPANIES
In December 2024, there were 14 insurance companies operating on the market. The total premium collected in 2024 amounted to EUR 1.9bn, of which EUR 335.1m (17.4%) related to life insurance premium and EUR 1.6bn (82.6%) to non-life insurance premium. On an annual basis, total premium collected in 2024 rose by 9.9%, with the increase in non-life insurance premium totalling 11.2%, and the rise in life-insurance premium reaching 4.2%. The structure of the non-life insurance premium collected is dominated by motor vehicle liability insurance (36.1%), followed by insurance of road vehicles (18.7%), other property insurance lines (9.3%), and insurance against fire and natural disasters (9.2%). The value of claims settled in 2024 reached EUR 1.3bn, increasing by 8.3% relative to the previous year, in which the part related to non-life insurance increased by 10.5% annually, while the amount of claims settled in life insurance recorded an annual growth of 4.3%. EUR 437.8m (34.8%) of this amount related to life insurance, while EUR 821.3m (65.2%) related to non-life insurance. In the total amount of claims settled in non-life insurance, the largest amounts related to motor vehicle liability insurance (39.8%), insurance of road vehicles (21.3%), other property insurance lines (9.6%), and insurance against fire and natural disasters (8.5%).
CAPITAL MARKET
The total turnover on the Zagreb Stock Exchange reached EUR 43.4m in December 2024, increasing by 14.9% on a monthly basis. The total turnover in the entire 2024 reached EUR 459.4m, rising by 23.6% compared to 2023. Market capitalisation increased by 4.1% relative to the previous month and stood at EUR 50.3bn, of which stocks amounted to EUR 28.9bn, bonds to EUR 18.6bn, money market instruments to EUR 2.7bn and ETFs to EUR 73m. On an annual basis, market capitalisation increased by 23.3% compared to the end of the previous year. As regards sectoral stock indices, the largest monthly growth (2.2%) was recorded by CROBEXkonstrukt, while CROBEXtransport recorded the largest monthly decline (-4.5%). The main ZSE stock index CROBEX recorded a monthly increase of 0.9%, while CROBEXtr increased by 1.4%. The CROBIS bond index recorded a 1.8% monthly increase, while CROBIStr rose by 2.0%. CROBEX, the main stock index, exceeded the limit of 3000 and recorded an annual increase of 25.9%, while CROBEXtr increased by 30.4% on an annual basis. Bond indices CROBIS and CROBIStr recorded an annual increase of 4.0% and 6.5% respectively. KONČAR d.d. was the stock most traded in December, with its turnover amounting to EUR 3.4m (14.3% of the overall trade in stocks in December) and an 8.3% monthly price increase. HT d.d. was the stock most traded in 2024, with its turnover amounting to EUR 31.9m, and an annual price increase totalling 47.3%.
INVESTMENT FUNDS
In December 2024, there were 117 UCITS operating on the market. Total net assets of UCITS amounted to EUR 3.2bn at the end of the year, increasing by EUR 31.9m or 1.0% compared to the previous month. Compared to end-2023, net assets of all UCITS rose by EUR 939.1m (41.0%). Total monthly net payments to UCITS in December were positive, amounting to EUR 25.8m. Positive net payments were recorded by money market funds (EUR 34.3m), equity funds (EUR 4.4m), balanced funds (EUR 3.3m) and funds categorised as “other” (EUR 0.4m), while negative net payments were recorded by feeder funds (EUR -0.01m) and bond funds (EUR -16.8m). Total annual net payments in 2024 were also positive, amounting to EUR 768.6m. Positive annual net payments were recorded by money market funds (EUR 598.7m), funds categorised as “other” (EUR 153.7m), equity funds (EUR 66.8m) and balanced funds (EUR 7.1m), while negative annual net payments were recorded by feeder funds (EUR -4.7m) and bond funds (EUR -53.1m). Bond funds’ net assets accounted for 26.2% of the total net assets of all UCITS at the end of December, funds categorised as “other” accounted for 24.8%, while equity and balanced funds accounted for 16.2% and 9.0% of the total UCITS’ net assets respectively. In December 2024, positive asset-weighted average monthly returns were recorded by equity funds (0.6%) and money market funds (0.2%). Other types of funds had negative asset-weighted average monthly returns, namely: funds categorised as “other” -0.1 %, bond funds -0.2%, balanced funds -0.5 % and feeder funds -1.1 %. At the end of December 2024, the asset-weighted average annual returns stood at 18.5% for equity funds, 7.6% for feeder funds, 7.6% for balanced funds, 4.3% for “other” funds and 2.7% for bond funds.
Net assets of the Fund for Croatian Homeland War Veterans and Members of their Families amounted to EUR 217.3m at the end of December (a 1.8% monthly increase), with the monthly return of the fund reaching 2.0%. On an annual basis, net assets of that fund rose by 48.5%, while its annual return reached 50.4%.
The full report is available at Statistics/Monthly reports.
[1] The annualised return is the geometric average of annual returns realised in the period observed.
[2] Beginning of operation: MPF category B: 30/4/2002; MPFs category A and C: 21/8/2014