PFRDA to soon allow subscribers to invest up to 75% in equity

Pension fund regulator PFRDA will launch two new schemes with aggressive and conservative options of investing up to 75 percent of funds in equity by subscribers in a months' time.

"We will launch two life coverage schemes with aggressive and conservation investment options in equity in a months time," Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Chairman Hemant Contractor said.

Under aggressive investment options, the subscribers would be allowed to start with up to 75 percent investments of their deposits into equity which will be reduced over a period of time as their age increases, he said.

In the other option or scheme, the subscribers will start with investing 25 percent of their deposits into equity which will too decrease subsequently over a period of time, he added.

At present, subscribers are allowed to start with investing up to 50 percent of their deposits in equity to our subscribers, Contractor said.

The overall return on investment for PFRDA was 11.5 percent. The rate of return for non-government subscribers is slightly higher at 13 percent compared to 9.5 percent of government employees subscribing to the scheme.

Government employees have the option to investment up to 15 percent of their deposits in equity market while non- government subscribers can invest up to 50 percent in stocks.

Contractor said: "The proposal to allow government employees to invest up to 50 percent of their deposits in equity is with the government. They have not approved it so far." National Pension System (NPS) is administered and regulated by PFRDA. The scheme was initially for government employees and later offered to other subscribers as well.

PFRDA manages 1.3 crore subscribers including 44 lakh government employees with a total corpus of Rs 14,000 crore.