PFRDA to hire 10 pension funds to manage NPS’ private schemes

Regulator PFRDA has proposed to hire 10 pension funds to manage corpus of private sector schemes under National Pension System (NPS). Introduced in January 2004, the NPS initially covered new entrants to central government services (excluding Armed Forces) and some state government services, but from April 2009 it was extended to all citizens of India including the unorganised sector workers on voluntary basis.

Floating the request for proposal for the selection process, the PFRDA  said the objective is to “appoint a maximum of 10 professional pension funds to manage the pension corpus of NPS excluding schemes under the NPS for central government and state government and other pension scheme namely Atal Pension Yojana (APY).”  The pension funds may also be required to handle any other pension schemes that may be assigned by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) in future.

In future it may embark on a selection process separately for management of schemes specifically excluded under the RFP or any other new or existing scheme, PFRDA further said. “Appointed and registered PFs shall manage pension corpus through various schemes under NPS. PFs will use their secure access codes to confirm receipt of netted assets and instructions regarding fund allocation, confirm allocation of funds and communicate the NAV of each scheme to CRA and the Custodian on a regular basis,” the RFP said. It further said that “no pension fund” will, directly or indirectly invest outside India, the funds of subscribers.

The pension funds will be selected for five years. At the end of June 2016, there were 12.9 million subscribers with Assets Under Management of Rs 1.32 lakh crore. 

Central and state government employees account for 36.6 per cent of the total subscribers and 88.6 per cent of Assets Under Management under NPS and APY. Corporate and unorganised sector (all citizen model) were just 5.7 per cent of the subscriber and 9 per cent of AUM.