PKA, the DKK250bn (€33.6bn) labour-market pension provider, has won a contract from the Danish Chiropodists’ Association (Danske Fodterapeuter) to provide pensions for its 1,800 members.

PKA, which currently has around 300,000 scheme members via the three social and healthcare pension funds it runs, said it won the tender process arranged by Deloitte to provide pensions for the association’s members, beating several other pension companies.

It said this was the first step on the path towards its goal of attracting more members.

Peter Damgaard Jensen, chief executive of PKA, said: “We have implemented a growth strategy at PKA, which we believe is necessary in an ever more competitive sector.

“The more members PKA has, the more robust it is, and the greater chances it has to be able to give its current and future members concrete benefits in the form of a high return, low costs, and a competitive yield on pensions.”

Damgaard Jensen said PKA was a pension fund for different professional groups and had a clear aim to provide pension products that matched their demands, regardless of whether they were public sector employees, private sector staff or self-employed.

Tina Christensen, chairman of the Danish Chiropodists’ Association, said there were many reasons why PKA had been chosen.

“It was very important for us that PKA can offer our self-employed and private-sector employed members a voluntary and flexible pensions package tailored to their needs,” she said.

“At the same time, PKA understands employees in the healthcare sector, so our 1,800 members will get a pensions package that suits them for their whole lives,” Christensen said.

Back in October, PKA launched a new drive to take on thousands of new members and win private-sector pension schemes from the hands of Denmark’s big commercial providers such as Danica and PFA. It said it had developed a pension product called PKA Private, which can be tailored to appeal to a wider range of customers.

The following month PKA announced it had poached Søren Bang Palfelt from PFA to lead the new business push.

Tomas Frydenberg, executive director in charge of membership matters, said the Danish Chiropodists’ Association deal was an early result of PKA’s new strategy to provide pension schemes to the entire healthcare sector.

He said PKA would continue this strategy in years to come and bid for other groups within the healthcare sector.

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