Pension regulator PFRDA is in talks with several electronic marketplaces, online platforms and e-wallet providers to reach the National Pension System (NPS) to millions of potential customers.
New-age fintechs have huge customer bases which otherwise are very difficult for the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) to reach out to, Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Whole Time Member-Finance, PFRDA, told BusinessLine .
Rural reach
“They have customers in every segment and geography. They have gone to deep rural areas also. It is our aim to reach out to these customers (in interior India) and so we are looking to partner with more such fintechs,” he said.
It is expected that Paytm will become the first mobile-based platform where customers can buy NPS. “We have already partnered with Paytm Money and it will be going live by December,” he added.
PFRDA is eyeing 5 lakh new customers (individuals) for PFRDA-private sector by the end March 2020. As on October 5, there were about 10 lakh subscribers in NPS-private, of which nearly 2 lakh were added this fiscal alone.
Deal with Paytm Money
“If Paytm Money and all these people start really working and firing on all cylinders, we should be able to achieve 5 lakh new additions this fiscal,” said Bandyopadhyay.
On expanding NPS coverage in the public sector, Bandyopadhyay said about 27 big PSUs have already come on board. Several big oil PSUs are also in the process of joining the scheme, he added.
“We are also trying to look at superannuation trusts registered with the income-tax department. We are collecting data from the CBDT and then reaching out to the trusts so that their beneficiaries can also be brought into NPS,” he said.
Similarly, through Atal Pension Yojana (APY), a micro pension product primarily targeted at the unorganised sector, PFRDA is confident of adding 75 lakh new subscribers this fiscal. “We had an APY customer base of about 1.50 crore as of end-March 2019. We are now eyeing a 2.25-crore customer base by the end of this fiscal,” said Bandyopadhyay.
In the first half this fiscal, about 34 lakh new APY customers were added, much higher than the 23 lakh added in the same period last year.
However, an APY customer base of 2.25 crore is only 6 per cent of the target population. “This is not much, but we have to take small steps to reach the big goal”, he said.