With 94.22 lakh members in the National Pension System (NPS), the regulator has invited applications for a second record-keeping agency to maintain subscriber accounts.

“The record-keeping, administration and customer-service functions for all subscribers of the NPS (NPS Main and NPS Lite) need to be centralised and to be performed by the CRA,” said the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority in the request for proposal, adding that the CRA would also act as the operational interface for all intermediaries.

The last date for all applications is January 20 and the second CRA would be appointed after February.

It would also be expected to issue and dispatch unique Permanent Retirement Account Numbers (PRANs) along with PRAN cards, I-PIN and T-PIN to the subscribers and maintain a record of their transactions.

The CRA would also provide services to trustee accounts, pension fund managers, annuity providers, nodal offices and the NPS Trust.

At present, NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure is the sole CRA registered with the PFRDA and it services all NPS subscribers.

The move is expected to improve the operational efficiency of the NPS as well as facilitate cheaper services for subscribers by ushering in competition.

“With nearly one crore subscribers under various schemes of the NPS and over ₹1 lakh crore in assets under management, it was felt that a second CRA will be useful,” a senior official said. Subscribers to the NPS, at present, pay an account opening fee of ₹50 to the NSDL, ₹190 as annual maintenance charges and ₹4 per transaction. For members of NPS Lite, the charges are slightly lower — ₹15 for account opening and ₹40 as annual maintenance charges.

The PFRDA has often faced flak for the CRA’s fee structure that was termed very steep.

The issue was also raised by the GN Bajpai Committee in its report on reviewing the implementation of the informal pension sector in 2011.

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