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January 2018

India. New fund managers and more incremental reform in pensions

The year 2017 saw some important developments in the pension sector, which is dominated in India by the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the National Pension System (NPS). As any development in the sector impacts the savings of millions of individuals, even a minor change goes through many deliberations, and could take time. The developments in withdrawal rules, taxability and ease of operation, in 2017, too were incremental in nature. Similarly, no single big bang change is expected in 2018....

November 2017

India. Maintaining NPS return at over 10 per cent to be examined: PFRDA chief Hemant Contractor

PFRDA Chairman Hemant Contractor today called for examining sustainability of high returns of over 10 per cent to government employee NPS subscribers at a time when interest rates are in decline. SBI Pension Funds, UTI Retirement Solutions and LIC Pension Fund Ltd are the three government-managed pension funds hired by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDA) that offers returns in the range of 10.16-10.52 per cent to central government employees. For the state level, the interest...

October 2017

India. Should NPS managers invest in mutual funds?

The National Pension System (NPS) has dedicated fund managers, called pension fund managers (PFMs), to manage the money you invest in it. But did you know, when you choose to let your NPS money be invested in equity, they are allowed to invest it in mutual funds? For you, as an NPS subscriber, this means added costs because you pay an investment fee to the pension fund managers apart from bearing the underlying expenses of mutual funds. Among the...

September 2017

CPPIB allocates $1 billion for Indian public market investments

Not all foreign funds are balking at Indian equities -spooked by rich valuations, slow corporate earnings or at the growing prospects of interest rate hikes in the US. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), the most active Canadian investor in India, has just reaffirmed its commitment, by allocating a dedicated $1-billion corpus, exclusively for public market investments, said multiple sources aware. As one of the 10 largest retirement funds in the world, the initial thesis of CPPIB has been to...

India. A year on, still no decision on pension fund managers

On 17 September 2016, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) invited fresh bids for managing funds for the private sector National Pension System (NPS). But a year later, the authority is yet to finalise the bids and issue fresh licences to the pension fund managers (PFMs) of NPS. In the interim, the managers continue to operate through an extension. “The request for proposal for the PFMs was valid till July. However, the regulator sought an extension of...

Financial Literacy and Inclusive Growth: Challenges and Opportunities

By Dinesha P. T. Sr. (University of Mysore) In India, financial literacy could now be only for the disadvantaged needy / underprivileged / poor but this is a continuous process where all citizens of the country should be periodically educated, which would become a certain tool to pave for the economic growth and the strength of the country. Recently our Prime Minister has announced series of ambitious social security schemes, relating to the pension and insurance sector and intended at...

August 2017

India. Pension ecosystem: New body needed to bring all retirement funds under its umbrella

At a time when personal savings, unlike in the past, fetch insubstantial returns, the current generation of employees is concerned over its post-retirement existence. There are also added features to modern-day life, with changing demographic structure, enhanced longevity, etc. Pension payout is becoming an ever-growing burden on the exchequer, and might become excessive, as has happened in Brazil. In India’s case, this is occurring at a time when almost 110 million people of retirement-age are not covered by any...

India. Can Pensioners Be Divided Into Arbitrary Categories To Deny Rightful Pension, SC Set To Give A Ruling

The Supreme Court bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh Lalit, on August 1 concluded hearing the arguments and reserved its judgment in the case of United Bank of India v United Bank of India Retirees Welfare Association & Others. This is an appeal against the Calcutta High Court’s Division Bench judgment, delivered on September 26 last year. The case raises an interesting issue on whether an invidious classification can be made between employees, who retired before...

India. Want to invest 50% of govt staff pension fund in market, says regulator

India’s pension regulator, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), has written to the government seeking approval to invest 50 per cent of the funds contributed by government employees under the National Pension Scheme (NPS), its flagship scheme in stocks. This signals a major shift considering that only 15 per cent of such funds are now routed to the stock markets. The NPS now has a corpus of Rs 198,000 crore with 87 per cent — Rs 172,260 crore...

India. Government pension scheme to offer fixed rate of interest to investors

Interest rates will "slowly" become "reasonable", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, a day after the RBI cut interest rates by 0.25 per cent. He also said that the government insurer LIC has come out with a pension scheme to offer fixed rate of interest to investors. A day after the RBI cut the interest rates, Jaitley said lending rate of 14-15 per cent will make India uncompetitive in the global market and industry cannot invest at such higher interest...