EPFO to consider crediting ETF units to PF accounts

Retirement fund body EPFO is likely to consider next month a proposal to credit a subscribers' share of its ETF investments to their provident fund accounts which can be redeemed at the time of withdrawal.

"Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) apex decision-making body the Central Board of Trustee (CBT) headed by Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar will meet in November. They are likely to consider the proposal to credit ETF investments to members' accounts," a Labour Ministry official told PTI.

The official said that the issue was listed on the agenda of the CBT meeting held earlier this year and was referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) .

The official said that the CAG had agreed to the proposal in principal but sought few clarifications.

As per estimates, EPFO's investment in ETFs is expected to touch Rs 45,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal.

EPFO had started investing in Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in August 2015, putting 5 per cent of its investible deposits in stock linked products. It was raised to 15 per cent for the current fiscal.

Once approved, the share of subscribers in the form of ETF units will be credited to their accounts.

An ETF is a security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange.

EPFO, which has about 5 crore subscribers, manages a corpus of over Rs 10 lakh crore.