Retail NPS more than doubles in one year

Mumbai, Aug 16 (PTI) Post the budgetary provision toprovide tax benefits up to 40 per cent of maturity ofinvestment in National Pension Scheme, the retail segment ofNPS has grown by over 100 per cent over the past one year. PFRDA Chairman Hemant Contractor told PTI that the new taxbenefits provision has drawn a lot of retail investors to theNPS schemes. Earlier, NPS schemes which were launched fiveyears ago, had failed to get retail subscribers. Retail NPS has grown by over 100 per cent over the pastone year. It is another thing that it started with almost azero base, he said. The total assets under management of NPS has reached Rs1.38 trillion out of which Rs 3,000 crore are of retailassets. Number of total subscribers including those who hadsubscribed for NPS/Swavalamban are more than the number ofgovernment employees who have subscribed for NPS. However, interms of value, the size of corpus contributed by governmentemployees, it was much less. "The government subscribers are even less than 40 per centin terms of number in NPS. Though in terms of value, it wasaround 87 per cent of the total AUM of NPS which currentlystands at Rs 1.38 trillion," he said. Implementation of Atal Pension Yojana (APY) by banks is amoderate success as they have already opened 32 lakh accountsunder APY so far, he said. It is despite the fact that banks have not come to thegovernment’s aspiration when it comes to implementation of APYin the country. So far, we have been able to accumulate Rs 900crore under APY, he added. Right now there are seven pension fund managers and thepension fund regulator has already started the move for moreplayers to join. "We have started the process. We are waiting for thegovernment’s decision on expanding the number of pension fundmanagers managing the government pension fund. We are waitingfor the government’s decision on the issue," he said, adding"we hope to do it within a month’s time." Talking about revised commission structure for pensionfund managers, he said that new commission structure forpension fund managers will also happen simultaneously. "We will have to float a new request for proposal for thesame, the draft for which has already been prepared by us aswe are waiting for the government’s nod to float the same."PTI KD DKABKJMF