The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) announced on Wednesday that it has reached a record 42.6 million subscribers under the National Pension System (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) at the end of the Financial Year 2020-21. Moreover, the combined assets under management (AUM) of the NPS and APY increased to 36.05% year-on-year (y-o-y) to touch ₹5.89 trillion as of April 2021.
Number of subscribers in various schemes under NPS and APY
The number of subscribers in various schemes under the NPS rose to 42.675 million by end-April 2021 from 34.601 million in April 2020 showing a y-o-y increase of 23.33%
While comparing it with last month, the subscribers under the NPS and APY reached 42.4 million in numbers. This shows that there is an increase of approximately 200,000 subscribers this month. While the AUM of NPS stood at ₹5.78 trillion in March, this month it reaches ₹5.89 trillion. There is an increase of ₹11,000 crore in AUM.
The pandemic has not impacted the joining of subscribers in comparison with the years before covid-19. A big reason may be the citizens have started realizing the uncertainty of life and the need for financial security and retirement planning.
Total Assets under Management under NPS and APY
In the financial year 2020-21, PFRDA has introduced various new policies to make the system seamless, from entry to exit in NPS. The policy initiatives include the subscribers’ onboarding, the exit process, the new methods of subscriber authentication such as OTP/ e-Sign based onboarding, Offline Aadhaar-based verification, and third-party onboarding after KYC verification, e-nomination, e-exit for NPS Subscribers, penny drop for bank account verification, etc.
Currently, NPS is extended to all citizens of India (resident/non-resident/overseas) voluntarily and corporates for its employees. NPS is compulsory for government employees who joined service after 2004 and it was opened to the private sector in 2009. NPS is low-cost and is a reasonably tax-efficient investment avenue.
Besides, APY is a periodic contribution-based pension plan and provides a guaranteed pension of ₹1,000- ₹5,000 to subscribers.
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