PFRDA Introduces New Life Cycle Funds for NPS

New Delhi, Jun 21 (PTI) Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority chairman Deepak Mohanty on Friday said the regulator would introduce new life cycle fund options by September for NPS (non-government) subscribers.

The tapering age will be increased to 45 years from the existing 35 years and some more changes will be adopted to provide greater exposure to equity markets, Mohanty said.

The new scheme would be effective in the next quarter, maybe in August and September, he said.

Currently, there are three life cycle fund options named LC 75, LC 50 and LC 25, which are also known as Aggressive Auto Choice, Moderate Auto Choice and Conservative Auto Choice, respectively.

Life cycle fund provides an option of investment to subscribers and allocation of equity and debt depends on the option chosen by them.

There are different investment choices (Auto/Active) for Tier I and Tier II NPS accounts.

With regard to Atal Pension Yojana (APY), Mohanty said, 1.24 crore new subscribers were added in FY24 with 52 per cent of them being women.

Since its inception 6.6 crore subscribers have been added under APY, he said, adding that it is rapidly gaining popularity amongst women and the younger generation in the country.

APY enrolment target is 1.3 crore subscribers during the current financial year, he added.

The enrolment under NPS (non-government) was 9.7 lakh in FY24 and that same is expected to go up to 11 lakh in the current fiscal, he said.

Market functioning normally, the total corpus, including APY, should increase to Rs 15 lakh crore in FY25 from Rs 12.4 lakh crore at the end of FY24.