Asset under management likely to be around Rs 9 trillion in FY23: PFRDA

Pension regulator Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) on Friday said the asset under management is likely to be around Rs 9 lakh crore this financial year due to market volatility.

"Earlier, we were looking at an AUM of over Rs 10 lakh crore, however, due to the Russia-Ukraine war and other geopolitical scenarios the market was volatile and we are hoping to be over Rs 9 lakh crore," PFRDA Chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay told reporters.

There has been an increase in fresh funds to Rs 1.5 lakh crore as of December 2022 compared to Rs 1.3 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.

As of December 2022, the number of subscribers for the National Pension Scheme (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) grew by 24.62 per cent to 606.07 lakh from 486.35 lakh in January 2022.

According to PFRDA data, the net invested contribution as on December 31, 2022, from the central government grew to Rs 1.65 lakh crore from Rs 1.37 lakh crore on January 1, 2022, states rose to Rs 3.24 lakh crore from Rs 2.52 lakh crore and corporate increased to Rs 84,878.13 crore from Rs 61,067.43 crore.

When asked about the launching of the Minimum Assured Return Scheme (MARS) under the National Pension System (NPS), Bandyopadhyay said the product was presented to the board and the structure is given to them.

"The board is considering it and hopefully in the next 7-10 days, we will have the approval. Once we have the approval we will notify," he added.

On the state government's demand for the accumulated corpus under NPS, he said the regulation under PFRDA does not allow it.

Three states -- Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand -- have asked for the custody of the accumulated corpus under the NPS.

These states have reverted to the non-contributory defined benefit old pension scheme (OPS) from April 2022, from reform-oriented contributory NPS.