Local government pensions for January have been paid into customers' bank accounts on 17 December already.
Due to human error, Keva has paid the January pensions of local government pension recipients prematurely. January pensions were paid into recipients' bank accounts already on Thursday 17 December 2020, whereas they should not have been paid until Monday 4 January 2021.
Premature payment affects some 400,000 Keva local government pension recipients. Keva will pay Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kela and Bank of Finland employee pensions on Monday 4 January 2021. State employee pensions will be paid on the normal payment date 20 January 2021.
The regrettable error means that local government pension recipients will not receive a pension payment in January 2021 and that their following pension will be paid on Wednesday 3 February 2021.
"It is advisable to take this into account when planning finances during Christmas and the New Year," says Deputy CEO Kimmo Mikander at Keva.
Keva has established the Tax Administration's preliminary opinion, which is that the January pension inadvertently paid in December will be included in pension income for 2020. Problems arising from this and the means to resolve them are being explored.
Depending on the circumstances of each customer, premature payment may have implications for the receipt of Kela benefits, for example. Keva has been in contact with Kela about the matter.
"We sincerely apologise to customers affected by the mistake, which was due to human error. Very many updates to payment data are made at the turn of the year and for some reason the incorrect payment date information remained in the databases and the wrong payment date was forwarded to the banks, " says Kimmo Mikander.
"As soon as we realised the mistake, we contacted the principal bank but there was nothing more that could be done," Mikander regrets.