Sivasubramanian Ramann, PFRDA Chairperson
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has set itself an ambitious target of taking the non-government NPS subscriber base to 5 crore this financial year, up sharply from around 90 lakh currently. This growth is expected to be driven by new digital onboarding partnerships, such as the Tatkal NPS built with NPCI and the STAR NPS built in partnership with BSE.“These two new platforms [Tatkal NPS and STAR NPS] are, in a way, out, and a few banks have initially started testing it. It’s in what we call a live testing phase,” he said. Four big banks are currently testing it and reporting bugs, and we have 22 banks who are integrating with the system, and in the next 45 days, all these banks should be ready too, PFRDA Chairperson Sivasubramanian Ramann, told media in a select interaction here on Friday.He was speaking to media persons on the sidelines of an outreach programme in the city.Customer friendlyWhile STAR NPS is a fully digital assisted-onboarding platform developed by BSE Technologies Pvt Ltd, allowing pension agents (including mutual fund distributors) to execute paperless KYC verifications and swift registrations, Tatkal NPS, built with NPCI, leverages the latter’s platform to allow customers rapid, secure KYC verification and instant generation of a Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN).PhonePe alone has around 65 crore customers and is getting ready to operate on Tatkal NPS by end of August, potentially giving us access to a huge pool of customers who can now experience seamless onboarding, Ramann added.The Chairman declined to estimate an AUM growth for the fiscal, Raman said that they are hoping for a 20-25, 22 per cent growth in contributions. Current NPS AUM stands at about ₹18.4 lakh crore.Non-government NPS accounts have risen from about 72 lakh in October last year to 90 lakh currently, representing roughly 25 per cent growth.Interestingly, we may soon see the first NPS investment into an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF).Asset classesRamann said PFRDA is expanding the asset classes available to NPS, with particular emphasis on REITs, InvITs and AIFs, and has has allowed up to 5 per cent of the equity portfolio of non-government NPS funds to be allocated to AIFs, compared with up to 1 per cent for government funds.“We have now created the NPS Bharat Fund of Funds. We will be giving money to various AIFs and will become limited partners through this. The board of the PFRDA approved the concept of investing in AIFs 5 years agoDesigned to channel domestic pension capital into alternative investment spaces and run by the NPS Trust, the Fund of Funds also has a committee of experts to evaluate AIF applications. Investments are expected to roll out within 60 days and reviews of initial applicants is currently on, Ramann said.On the new NPS e-shramik model for platform workers, Ramann said that onboarding of gig/platform workers has reached approximately 1,00,000 subscribers, with initial AUM beginning to build up steadily.Published on August 22, 2026
