The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) on Tuesday said that it has reached the milestone of 30 lakh voluntary subscribers (non-government subscribers) under the National Pension System (NPS) over a period of 12 years.

“Three million in the non government sector is a big number for us because in 2018, the number of such subscribers was only 13.5 lakh. In three years, the number has more than doubled”, Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, PFRDA said at a virtual meeting to announce this milestone.

The total corpus these 30 lakh subscribers are carrying as on date is about ₹97,000 crore, reflecting that these are serious investors and would soon touch the ₹1 lakh crore milestone, he added.

Bandyopadhyay also highlighted that more than 9,100 entities or employers have already adopted NPS.

PFRDA Chairman said that the returns delivered by NPS has encouraged individuals to voluntarily opt for NPS. For instance, the return given by the Equities scheme ( NPS subscribers opting for Equities investment ) was 12.94 per cent over the last 12 years.

He highlighted that this return had mostly come out of investments in those stocks in Futures & Options segment that had a minimum market capitalisation. Only recently had PFRDA allowed pension fund managers to expand their investment universe to top 200 stocks in BSE and NSE, he added.

He also said that the returns on corporate bonds portfolio for 12 years was touching 9.92 per cent and government securities was 9.4 per cent.

New subscribers

Between April 1 and August 14 this fiscal, as many as 2.41 lakh new NPS subscribers were on boarded, a 50 per cent growth from level of 1.6 lakh in same period last year. Nearly 45-47 per cent of the new subscriber addition so far this fiscal came through the digital route in the form of e-NPS. This proportion was substantial higher than the numbers seen for e-NPS in same period last fiscal, Bandyopadhyay said.

“This strong growth in number of subscribers and the amount involved clearly shows that people are taking note of the investment opportunity from NPS which not only allows you to build a corpus but also gives a decent return during the accumulation phase and get financial freedom post retirement”, he said.

He also expressed confidence that PFRDA will be able to achieve its aim of onboarding one million non-government subscribers this fiscal. In entire 2020-21, as many as 5.92 lakh non-government subscribers were onboarded.

PFRDA chief also indicated that the regulator may soon allow more new-age fintechs (including App based brokerages) to distribute NPS. Already, PFRDA has allowed individuals to distribute NPS.

As on August 14, 2021, the total number of NPS subscribers is 4.48 crore and the total assets under management (AUM) are ₹6,37,090 crore. This is a 31 per cent increase year-on-year when compared to August 14 last year. As many as 75.32 lakh employees formed part of the government sector NPS subscribers.

PFRDA is confident of on-boarding one million new non-government NPS subscribers this fiscal, says Chief Bandyopadhyay

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