Zerodha invests $2 million in Pensionbox, forms joint venture for Corporate NPS

.

• Pensionbox partners with Zerodha to expand NPS offerings to corporates
• Zerodha invests $2 million in Pensionbox for expansion and marketing
• Corporate NPS offers tax benefits under the new tax regime for high earners

Did our AI summary help?

National Pension System (NPS) enabler Pensiobox has partnered with Zerodha for a joint venture to take the retirement investment product to corporates, Pensionbox founder and CEO Kuldeep Parashar told Moneycontrol.

Zerodha has also invested $2 million in the Bengaluru fintech for expansion, sales and marketing initiatives. In 2021, the company raised a pre-seed round of $260,000 from 100x.VC for building the product.

“While the employee provident fund (EPF) is mandatory for around 7 lakh companies, only about 22,000 do NPS, indicating significant growth potential. The digital NPS platform can integrate with corporate payroll software, making the process seamless,” Parashar said.

While the new tax regime took the sheen off NPS, it is still the only tax saving tool under the new regime. And by opting for Corporate NPS, taxpayers can get tax deduction on employer contribution up to 14 percent of the basic salary, making it a good tool for employees earning more than Rs 15 lakh in annual income.

“We are partnering with Pensionbox to enable long-term savings of investors towards their retirement goals. Zerodha is working towards creating a co-branded initiative to enable the Corporate NPS product for employers, which is the last remaining tax deduction under the New Tax Regime,” said Somnath Mukherjee, vice president, corporate development at Zerodha.

Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), under the new chairman, has made multiple positive changes in January 2026, which include lower lock-in periods of 15 years and allowing partial withdrawals. The organisation has also enabled loans against customers’ investments, similar to the 401k investment system in the US.

Pensionbox has around 2 lakh retail NPS customers. However, the company feels that corporate NPS is likely to scale much faster.

Most NPS providers earn around 0.2 percent commission on the Assets Under Management facilitated through their platforms, with customers enjoying zero charges for transactions. Currently, banks are the biggest enablers of corporate NPS.

According to Parashar, Pensionbox has created digital workflows to enable employers, human resource teams, accounting teams and employees to onboard online while allowing the employee to select a contribution towards equity or debt as per their comfort.

Interestingly, Zerodha has NPS on its Coin app, a platform for mutual fund investments or rather, all long-term investments. Zerodha’s Kite is positioned as the platform for equity investments and trading.