Two years after the introduction of the National Pension Scheme, the Pension Commission has yet to register a single plan.

The Pension Commission's annual report, tabled in the House of Assembly on Friday, says that most of the plans submitted to the Commission last year did not qualify for registration because of missing documents and "numerous areas of non-compliance".

Commission chairman Roger Titterton told The Royal Gazette that there was no cause for mass hysteria among the Island's 23,000 plan members because the problem areas identified by the Commission are either bureaucratic lapses or "minor" instances of non-compliance.

"I would be more concerned about the stock market than whether the plans are totally complaint or not," Mr. Titterton said.

"I would expect there to be areas of non-compliance because the Act is brand new and it's very complex. In the hurry to get the plans underway I would expect there to be non-compliance."

According to the report, no plans were registered with the Commission throughout the whole of last year.

"The Pension Commission's role as regulator is to protect the plan members by promoting and ensuring compliance under the Act and the regulations. As such, no plans will be registered until they are in compliance with the requirements of the Act and the regulations," Mr. Titterton is quoted as saying in the report.

The report is not specific on the seriousness of the lapses and while the Commission is not allowed by law to register plans without evidence that they are legal, Commission CEO Roseann Maxwell Stovell downplayed the significance of the nonregistration when asked on Sunday to clarify.

"Under the Act the plans continue to be administered according to the regulations," she said.

The report also cites staffing problems as one of the reasons why no plans were registered but that problem has been resolved as the "right staff mix" is now in place.

The National Pension Scheme (Occupational Pensions) Act 1998 requires every Bermudian and non Bermudian spouse of a Bermuda in full time employment to take out a private pension. It also created the Pension Commission as the Island's regulator of the pension plans.

Mr. Titterton said that it was the Commission's "number one" priority to register most of the plans over the next twelve months.

But the report also cautions that new regulations yet to be put in place by the Minister of Finance could mean that more changes would have to be made to the plans before they can be registered.