How can you get a pension in 2021?

In 2021, a pensioner can choose one of two ways to receive a pension:

1. At the post office. The money is transferred to the pensioner at the post office; it can be collected during a personal visit or ordered delivered to the address of residence. In the second case, the postman will bring the money on the day it is due.
2. To a bank card. This is the most convenient method, which most pensioners are gradually switching to. The remote view with crediting to the card has become especially relevant during the quarantine period, when it is desirable to reduce personal contacts to a minimum.

Most often, older citizens apply for pension cards at Sberbank. However, many other Russian banks also offer cards for pensioners. Sometimes the service conditions and loyalty programs in other banks may be more attractive than in the largest bank in the country.

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A prerequisite for obtaining a pension card is its connection to the MIR payment system. But the choice of the bank that will issue the card remains at the discretion of the citizen.

You can use your pension card like all standard debit cards. They withdraw money from it, pay for purchases in stores, and conduct transactions in terminals. In most banks, pensioners automatically or optionally receive access to online banking and a mobile application. Access to the bank's personal account allows you to carry out any operations, make payments and transfers.

Depending on where the pension is received on the card or by mail, the reasons for the delay in payments may be different. Before you decide that your pension payments are indeed being delayed, you need to understand the payment schedule. The exact day on which the pension is received depends on the place of residence. Sometimes payments may fall on a day when there is a holiday or a non-working day in the country. In this case, the pension must be paid ahead of schedule, on the previous working day. But it happens that money arrives even after weekends and holidays.

The procedure for issuing pensions

Russia has a system through which disabled citizens can receive benefits in the form of pension payments. They are accrued every month, and the amount depends on why the person receives money from the state.

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Citizens of this category receive a pension once a month. At the same time, the exact number is assigned depending on the time frame within which the citizen was able to confirm the status of a disabled person. In this regard, the accrual date may change every year after completing the necessary procedure.

Why can your pension be delayed?

If the fact of the delay is established, you can find out the reason why there are no accruals. There can be many prerequisites: from difficult economic situations to simple human factors. The most common reasons why payments to older people are delayed:

1. The Pension Fund did not have enough funds to make all payments. In recent years, this problem has affected some regions of the country, when pensioners actually faced such a situation. But the delay was resolved quickly and did not lead to serious problems.
2. Technical problems when transferring money to the bank. In particular, an insufficient free balance of funds in the correspondent account intended for the payment of pensions. In this case, the culprit will be the institution through which the operation was carried out. The money will arrive to pensioners with a delay of 1-2 days.
3. The documents that the pensioner submitted to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation contain errors or incorrectly completed data. This reason for delay occurs among those who receive a pension for the first time.
4. Delays in the preparation and approval of documents between the Pension Fund and the bank. Often the pensioner himself becomes the culprit in this situation if he submitted the necessary documents after the due date. In this case, delays in pension payments are guaranteed, but the money will still arrive, albeit with a delay.
5. Errors when activating a plastic card on which money should be received. To correct this problem, contact your issuing bank. Employees will explain the reason and help resolve the issue. To do this, you can call the hotline, give your secret word for identification and receive instructions remotely. Or you will have to take your passport to the nearest branch of the servicing bank where pension payments are received.

These are the most common reasons for delayed payments to pensioners. Delays most often occur in December and January. At the end of the old and beginning of the new year, technical problems or interruptions in financing may occur due to long holidays.

Where to complain if your pension is delayed

You contact the prosecutor's office with a complaint about the pension fund. Sometimes the person responsible for the delay (non-payment) of a pension may be prosecuted under Art. 145.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Persons are brought to criminal liability in cases where your pension has not been paid for a long time or has not been paid in full, which has resulted in significant consequences for you, be it hunger, illness, inability to pay for medications, surgery, etc. If this is not established, the prosecutor's office may go to court with a claim to declare the Pension Fund's response illegal and oblige the pension to be calculated in accordance with the requirements of the law. The prosecutor's office, as a rule, goes to court with such claims in defense of the interests of citizens who cannot defend their interests themselves, due to some health reasons or other reasons that should be indicated in the application, if any.

When the response of the pension fund is in the nature of an unsubscribe, you do not agree with the answer, or for some other reason you are not satisfied with the answer, then the next place you should contact is the prosecutor's office.

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What to do if there is a delay

If the delay occurs for one of the reasons listed, you can begin to act. But don't panic ahead of schedule. If there are technical problems or an error in the work of Russian social services, the money may arrive the very next day. Therefore, to begin with, you should wait at least 5-7 days. If after this the money has not been credited to your bank card, follow the instructions:

1. Contact the bank branch and get a certificate stating that the pension was not credited on a certain day. Bank employees are required to provide a certified account statement, which shows that there were no pension receipts in the current period.
2. With the collected evidence from the bank, go to the Pension Fund branch.

The submitted documents will be reviewed by Pension Fund employees. After an investigation, you will be advised why payments were delayed. In addition, employees will indicate a new date for when the pension will arrive. In most cases, this is enough, the money arrives within the agreed period and the problem is eliminated.

Filing a complaint and resolving the problem through court

If you do not receive a response from the Pension Fund, you can file a complaint:

• to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation;
• to a banking institution;
• or the prosecutor's office.

Each of the authorities has a period of 1 month to consider the problem. The complaint can be submitted in free form, but it must contain:

• the name of the organization to which you are filing a complaint;
• personal data of the pensioner: full name, address, telephone number;
• essence of the complaint: detailed description of the situation;
• requirements for the organization, while references to current legislation are required;
• date of filling out the claim;
• a list of documents that are attached to the complaint;
• signature.

If filing a complaint does not bring results, you can go to court. When writing a claim, it is better to use the services of lawyers. But you can also fill out a lawsuit yourself using samples from the Internet.

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When going to court, you need to file an application (if you simply appeal the Pension Fund’s response) or a statement of claim (if, in addition to recognizing the pension fund’s response, you will demand something else, for example, to oblige the accrual of a pension, to collect a debt for an illegally withheld pension and so on.).

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When the response of the pension fund is in the nature of an unsubscribe, you do not agree with the answer, or for some other reason you are not satisfied with the answer, then the next place you should contact is the prosecutor's office.

Why were there delays in July 2021?

A warning about possible delays in pension payments in July 2020 was published on the official website of the Pension Fund. Pension payments are usually issued from the 3rd to the 23rd of the month. For those who should receive money on July 12, payments were postponed to July 13, since the 12th fell on a Sunday.

This is not a rare practice, so it did not cause mass negative reactions. Employees of the Pension Fund argued that there could not be long delays in this case. The Pension Fund of Russia notifies Russian citizens on the official website about any delays in enrollment that may occur.

It was also clarified on the Pension Fund website that pensioners can familiarize themselves with the exact schedule for receiving their pension. To do this, you need to contact the territorial office of the Pension Fund, where employees will provide up-to-date information. If pension payments are received in cash at the post office, the payment schedule will depend on the office's business hours.

Applying for a pension through a bank

Now you can apply for a pension, receive social insurance and check the availability of accrued taxes at bank branches, via Internet banking or a mobile application. This feature will be tested for effectiveness as part of an experiment throughout 2021. The service is being tested in several regions:

• Bashkiria;
• Astrakhan region;
• Kirov region;
• Moscow region;
• Saint Petersburg.

Some banks in these regions will provide citizens with Pension Fund, Social Insurance Fund, Federal Tax Service and Federal Social Security Service services.

Now citizens need to personally visit bank and Pension Fund branches. At the same time, approximately a third of submitted applications are not processed by the Pension Fund due to errors in paperwork. But before the first pension payments are calculated, the citizen may not even know about it. With the new service, pensioners will be able to submit an application and receive a response from the bank whether their documents were accepted or not.

But even now you can make payments remotely through the government services website or the Pension Fund. In this case, there is no need to bring documents in person, since they use the data that employers transfer to the Pension Fund. But the online service is not available for all types of pensions. For example, to confirm work experience in the North or to extend payments under a power of attorney, you still need to visit the Pension Fund branch in person.

During the experiment with the inclusion of banking organizations in the process, citizens will be able to apply for pensions and obtain the necessary information in two ways: online and offline. For offline registration, you need to visit the bank office, and for online service, log in to the bank’s mobile application through the government services website. Such banks as Sberbank, Gazprombank, Promsvyazbank, Rosselkhozbank, VTB and Sovcombank are already planning to take part in the experiment.

How to transfer a pension to a bank card

To transfer pension payments to a bank card, you need to collect:

• citizenship of the Russian Federation;
• pensioner's certificate;
• insurance certificate of state pension insurance - SNILS must be indicated on it;
• a document that confirms registration in the locality where the pensioner receives payments.

After you have collected all the necessary documents, you can proceed to re-registration of your pension:

1. Visit the bank branch where you want to apply for a pension card, with an application and the necessary documents.
2. Conclude a banking service agreement. This usually includes issuing a pension card and opening an account. Sometimes they include the issuance of an additional card attached to the pensioner’s account if he wants to provide access to funds to other persons.
3. Go to the Pension Fund branch and fill out an application to transfer your pension to a bank account. Be sure to provide current details for crediting your pension.

Please note that when switching to a pension bank card, the timing of pension accrual may change. You can find out the exact date of receiving your pension from the issuing bank or the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation.

If a pensioner decides to change the servicing bank, the new date for receipt of pension payments may also change. In addition, in most cases you will have to go through the entire procedure again.

Most banks have similar service conditions for pensioners. But when it comes to the prospects for cooperation, for example, obtaining a loan or credit card, you should study offers from several banks and choose the most profitable ones.

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Starting in 2021, a large-scale pension reform will start in Russia, which will make changes to the conditions of retirement, including social benefits in old age. According to the Government, thanks to these changes it will be possible to regulate the country's pension system. In addition, from January 1, 2021, payments are expected to increase by an average of 1 thousand rubles.

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Increasing pensions by 1,000 rubles in 2021 To stabilize the growth of pensions in Russia, the Government decided to annually increase the amount of payments by 1 thousand rubles. This size of the premium was determined by the “May order” of the President of the Russian Federation, which talks about an increase taking into account the amount of inflation.

How to check the receipt of pension on the card

To find out whether the pension has arrived on your plastic card or not, use one of 3 options:

1. ATM. Insert the card into the receiver and select from the menu. The amount available in the account is visible on the screen or on a printed receipt. The balance request operation may be subject to a fee if carried out at ATMs of third-party banks. This should be clarified in advance so as not to lose money.
2. SMS service. To provide timely information about the receipt of funds into your account, you can enable SMS notifications. In this case, the bank will send messages about all deposits. Some banks have a paid service, others do not. In particular, Sberbank pension cards receive SMS messages about pension crediting for free for the first 2 months of service. Then the pensioner will be deducted 30 rubles per month.
3. In your personal account in Internet banking. In the account information section you can find information about the amount of funds in the account. This option may turn out to be the most economical, because most Russian banks provide free access to a mobile application and online banking.

Through a personal bank account, a pensioner can pay for utilities, transfer money, top up a mobile phone account, or receive transfers from children and loved ones. In addition, any pension card can be connected to a loyalty program and receive bonuses or cashback on the card.

about the author

Klavdiya Treskova - higher education with qualification “Economist”, with specializations “Economics and Management” and “Computer Technologies” at PSU. She worked in a bank in positions from operator to acting. Head of the Department for servicing private and corporate clients. Every year she successfully passed certifications, education and training in banking services. Total work experience in the bank is more than 15 years. [email protected]

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Who should I complain to if I didn’t get my pension?

Today, citizens who have worked in the Soviet, post-Soviet and Russian periods of the existence of our state are eligible for old-age insurance pensions. In each of these periods, changes to pension laws occurred. But according to the existing rule, the pension rights of a citizen earned by him in each of these periods are preserved and taken into account according to the pension laws that were in force in those time periods. Therefore, calculating the size of the pension has become very complicated and errors cannot be ruled out. Errors can arise for various reasons: due to the incompetence of a pension fund specialist, errors (inaccuracies) in the documents submitted when applying for a pension. In addition, the pensioner himself can make mistakes, for example, by forgetting to indicate whether he has the right to any additional payments or that he has someone as a dependent.

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An application to check the calculation of your pension can be sent to your PFR branch without leaving your home - through the official website of the PFR (https://www.pfrf.ru/eservices/send_appeal/resident/). Having opened this page, read the rules for accepting and considering online requests, then in the “Recipient” field (at the bottom of the page), by clicking on the black icon on the right - ▼, select your regional branch. Then, in the “Send to Branch” field, select your Pension Fund branch at your place of residence, then fill out all other fields. You must attach scanned or photographed copies of documents (files) to your application. Select the option to receive a response: to the postal address of your place of residence or to your email address (you can select both options). Enter the text indicated in the picture in the empty field to the right of the picture. Check the box next to the picture “I consent to the processing of my data.” Then click the “Submit” button.

Comments: 2

Your comment (question) If you have questions about this article, you can tell us. Our team consists of only experienced experts and specialists with specialized education. We will try to help you in this topic:

Author of the article: Klavdiya Treskova

Consultant, author Popovich Anna

Financial author Olga Pikhotskaya

1. Vyacheslav
   03.23.2021 at 18:51 How many months can the Pension Fund not pay a pension (at first) they found an error in the labor report and are correcting it.
   Reply ↓ Anna Popovich
   03/24/2021 at 18:44

   Dear Vyacheslav, has pension payment been suspended or terminated? We recommend that you contact the regional PFR hotline and find out the deadline for accrual or restoration of payments from a specialist.

   Reply ↓