Most of the ten applicants may get licences in the latest round
The Board of the pension regulator, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), has given its approval to award licences to pension fund managers under its recently floated Request for proposal (RFP), for selection of sponsors of pension funds for National Pension System (NPS).

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It may be recalled that as many as ten applicants, including new ones such as Tata Asset Management Company, DSP Investment Managers (India) Pvt Ltd and Axis Asset Management, had made applications under the new RFP floated by the pension regulator in mid-December last year.

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The seven fund managers who already manage NPS funds and had applied in the latest round are the pension arms of SBI, UTI, LIC, ICICI, HDFC, Aditya Birla Sun Life and Kotak.

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Besides throwing open the door to more pension fund managers, the recent RFP had introduced at least five-fold jump in their fees, making it lucrative.

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority had taken this big initiative to revamp the pension funds management structure in India and position the industry for strong decadal growth that could take the overall assets under management of NPS to ₹30-lakh crore by 2030.

The main objective behind the RFP is to expand the number of players (only serious) in the pension industry and ensure that existing as well as new players are better remunerated in terms of fund management fees in line with the size of their operations.

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