If you work for 30 years, a two per cent difference in pension returns can reduce your final retirement nest egg by 40 per cent. The Rs 9-trillion National Pension System (NPS) seems to be delivering incrementally higher returns than the twice-as-large Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), shows a Business Standard analysis of data over the last seven years for the two retirement fund bodies. An investor who put in Rs 100 in retirement savings seven years ago would have seen her NPS nest egg grow to Rs 182 by 2023, according to the analysis based on the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority's recently released Handbook of National Pension System Statistics 2023.
The reduction in goods & services tax (GST) on individual life and health insurance premiums has been called a "landmark step" for making insurance affordable and inclusive. In a panel discussion at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2025, Anup Bagchi, managing director (MD) & chief executive officer (CEO) of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance; Mahesh Balasubramanian, MD & CEO of Kotak Life Insurance; Tarun Chugh, MD & CEO of Bajaj Life Insurance; and Ratnakar Patnaik, MD of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), listed what else the industry needs to reach more people.
The Labour Ministry has relaxed investment norms for retirement fund manager EPFO, but refrained from allowing the body to invest a part of its huge corpus of around Rs 5 lakh crore in equity markets.
The Central Board of Trustees of the EPFO will meet on Friday to decide on the setting up of separate agencies for recovery of arrears and audit, and the rollover of interest of the IFCI.
India's urban unemployment rate declined in Q4FY23 to 6.8 per cent - the lowest in over four years -- after it stagnated at 7.2 per cent in the previous October-December quarter, reflecting improvement in the labour market, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday. The unemployment rate in current weekly status (CWS) terms for all ages in the March quarter was the lowest recorded in more than four years, from the time the NSO released India's first quarterly urban jobless rate for the December quarter in 2018. The jobless rate in urban areas had been on a continuous decline since the peak of 20.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of FY21.
The rest 25% would be paid to the subscriber at the age of 58.
Agreeing to a partial rollover of the interest rate, the Central Board of Trustees of the EPFO on Friday asked the IFCI to pay 10 per cent on bonds issued by it for the next 10 years, starting from this fiscal.
Retirement fund body EPFO on Thursday lowered the interest rate on Provident Fund deposits to 8.5 per cent for the current financial year, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said on Thursday.
Air India Chairman Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the new aviation secretary as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Wednesday. K Rajaraman, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of telecommunications, a personnel ministry order said.
'Barring a temporary blip where stocks fell on verdict day, we are back to all-time highs.'
'Returning Indians can leverage their international skills and the strong funding environment for start-ups here.'
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who wants pension and insurance funds to invest more in equities and infrastructure.
A remarkable story which helped in transforming a bureaucratic organization, to a customer centric organization. This experience may inspire several government / private organizations to modify or adopt digitisation to transform their business, notes Professor N Ravichandran (retd).
A deep dive into Trump's new policy and what it means for Indian professionals and companies.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
Wealth management seems to have moved from family office solutions to CXO office solutions.
Notices have been issued to the company for penal damages.
Fresh formal job creation cooled for the second consecutive month to decline to a six-month low in September, signalling a downturn in the labour markets this financial year. The number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) declined by 6.45 per cent to 891,583 in September from 953,092 in August, shows the latest payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Besides, the net payroll additions -- calculated by taking into account the number of new subscribers, the number of exits, and the return of old subscribers -- increased by 14.9 per cent to 1.72 million in September from 1.49 million in August.
'This year overall hiring has seen a slight improvement as compared to the dip seen during the last financial year.'
During 2019-20, the number of net new subscribers rose to 78.58 lakh as compared to 61.12 lakh in the preceding fiscal.
In January, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation had asked the field staff to ensure the collection of data in respect of member joining on or after March 1, on a monthly basis and in respect of existing members by June 30, 2013.
The EPFO started investing in ETFs in August last year after the CBT in March cleared proposal to invest in equity markets.
"People in India are benefiting from the whole process of liberalisation," Finance Minister Arun Jailtey said.
Employees joining companies after August and availing of the government benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) will also have to link their PF accounts with Aadhaar numbers.
In his address after more than 75,000 people were given appointment letters for various government jobs in the first tranche, Modi acknowledged the challenges facing the economy the world over with many countries hit by a record inflation and unemployment and said India is making every effort to come out of the situation unscathed.
Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said, the purpose of labour reforms is to provide a transparent system to suit the changed business environment.
The main purpose of the meeting is to assess their views on reforms that are required to attract long-term capital into the country.
7 million jobs will be created in formal sector in FY18
Tax evaders, BEWARE! The Income Tax department is using AI data analytics to bust fake deductions, flag HRA fraud, and trace digital footprints.
By region, Thiruvananthapuram leads with 247 defaulters, followed by Kolkata with 173 and Bhubaneswar with 115
AUM had touched a record level of Rs 9.58 lakh crore in August last year.
HDFC Bank's latest shareholding data showed that the room for foreign investment has fallen just 5 basis points short of the threshold set by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) to fully include the stock in its indices. Currently, the index provider has applied an adjustment factor of 0.5 since the foreign room is less than 25 per cent. Removal of the adjustment factor will result in inflows of a massive $4.8 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) into HDFC Bank, according to Brian Freitas, a New Zealand-based analyst with Periscope Analytics.
The Finance Ministry has been pitching for EPFO funds to be invested in the equity markets to maximise their yields.
Around 67.59 jobs were generated in the entire 2018-19 fiscal, the payroll data based on members joining the schemes of the EPFO showed.
Ask rediffGURU and PF expert Milind Vadjikar your insurance, stocks, mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
