10151 - NRIs can now join National Pension Savings online with PAN or Aadhaar - Economic Times

NRIs can now join National Pension Savings online with PAN or Aadhaar

By PTI | Jun 17, 2016, 07.16 PM IST

"NRIs can now open NPS Accounts online if they have Aadhaar Card or PAN card," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry today said non resident indians (NRIs) can now open National Pension Savings (NPS) accounts online if they have Aadhaar Card or PAN card. 

"NRIs can now open NPS Accounts online if they have Aadhaar Card or PAN card," the Finance Ministry said in a statement. 

Till now, NRIs could open NPS accounts only through paper applications by approaching Bank offices. 

"Through eNPS, a subscriber will be able to open an NPS account from the comfort of his home. All he will need is an internet connection and an Aadhaar/ PanCard," the statement added. 

Further, the statement said NRIs will be able to open NPS accounts both on repatriable and on non-repatriable basis. 

"On a repatriable basis, an NRI will have to remit the amount through his/her NRE/FCNR/NRO account. 

"For Non-Repatriable scheme, NRIs will be able to join NPS through their NRE/FCNR/NRO accounts at the time of maturity or during partial withdrawal, the NPS funds would be deposited only in their NRO accounts," it pointed out. 

The Finance Ministry expressed hope that both repatriable and non-repatriable schemes will greatly appeal to NRIs who intend to return to India after their employment abroad, in view of their attractive returns, low cost, flexibility and their being regulated by the PFRDA, a Regulator established by the Central Government. 

India has the second-largest diaspora in the world, with around 29 million people living in over 200 countries and out of these 25 per cent live in the Gulf countries. 

Most of the Indians going to the gulf and some other countries go for employment and return to India after having worked abroad for a certain period. 

"NPS can provide a long-term solution to their old age income security," the statement said.

9176 - Maharashtra government to join Centre's biometric-based pension scheme -dna

Maharashtra government to join Centre's biometric-based pension scheme

Wednesday, 16 December 2015 - 7:20am IST | Agency: dna | 

• Dhaval Kulkarni
  Follow @dhavalkulkarni

The Maharashtra government has around 6 lakh pensioners in addition to around 2 lakh pensioners of various zilla parishads. They have to provide life certificates between November 1 and 30.

In a major relief for pensioners and their families, the Maharashtra government has decided to participate in the Centre's Jeevan Pramaan scheme, which enables the beneficiaries to submit digitised, biometric life certificates.

Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar recently granted his approval for joining the scheme, which will make things easier for pensioners by reducing modalities in the grant of pension. They have to provide life certificates to pension disbursing agencies, such as banks, on an annual basis, and have to present themselves personally before the bank officials or get the certificate issued by the department where they had served and deliver it to the bank. This causes inconvenience to pensioners, especially to those who are unwell, confined or have settled elsewhere.

The Maharashtra government has around 6 lakh pensioners in addition to around 2 lakh pensioners of various zilla parishads. They have to provide life certificates between November 1 and 30.

The biometric-based Jeevan Pramaan digital life certificate scheme will make it easier for pensioners to get these certificates. The Aadhaar-linked system will enable pensioners to scan their iris or fingerprints to certify that they are alive and cut down on unnecessary procedures.

"The in-principle approval has been granted. Now the National Informatics Centre (NIC) will decide on the modalities and the procedure to grant these digital life certificates and will work on the back-end software too," said a senior finance department official. The life certificates can also be electronically delivered to the pension disbursing agency without any human intervention, he added.

He said the biometric scanning facilities could be made available in banks, government offices, citizen service centres (CSCs) and Sangram centres, which have been set up in gram panchayats, dedicated Jeevan Pramaan centres or even from the comfort of ones' home in case the pensioner had the necessary hardware and software. For this, the pensioners will voluntarily have to seed their Aadhaar numbers with their pension and bank database and provide their biometric details. The official added the facility was likely to be activated in the coming year.

9003 - Wait becomes longer for opening NPS accounts online - Live Mint

Wed, Oct 28 2015. 02 33 AM IST

Wait becomes longer for opening NPS accounts online

With the SC not allowing the use of Aadhaar for the NPS, PFRDA has put on hold its plans of using Aadhaar-based e-KYC for opening accounts online

Remya Nair

New Delhi: Subscribers looking to open an account online with the National Pension System (NPS) will have to wait longer to access this facility.

With the Supreme Court not allowing the voluntary use of Aadhaar for the NPS, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has put on hold its plans of using Aadhaar-based e-KYC (know your customer) for opening accounts online.

“The plan to move forward through an Aadhaar-based e-kyc will remain on hold,” said R.V. Verma, member, PFRDA.

In its interim order on 15 October, the Supreme Court only allowed the use of Aadhaar for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, pension by central and state governments, and the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, in addition to the public distribution system (PDS), cooking gas and kerosene. The court has set up a constitutional bench to hear various petitions challenging the use of Aadhaar in various social security schemes of the government.

Meanwhile, PFRDA is exploring alternate options to make this facility available to its customers. “We are looking at alternative measures to see how account opening can be facilitated online but haven’t arrived at a decision yet,” said Verma.

The Supreme Court order will delay PFRDA’s plan of allowing subscribers to open an account without needing to go to the various agencies designated as points of presence by the regulator. The plan was to allow subscribers to fill a form online while taking care of the KYC requirements through e-KYC. E-KYC service provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India is recognized as a valid document by the government for all financial services under the Prevention of Money-laundering Rules.

The regulator was looking to make it easier for subscribers to open NPS accounts by facilitating online account opening, as it expects more people to open accounts this fiscal to capitalize on the Union budget sop that allowed extra tax deduction for investments in NPS, as reported by Mint on 6 May.

To encourage old age saving and pension, finance minister Arun Jaitley had proposed to provide a deduction of up to Rs.50,000 over and above the saving limit of Rs.1.5 lakh under section 80C, for contributions made to NPS.

Though NPS has more than 10 million subscribers with total assets under management of more than Rs.1.1 trillion, the majority of subscribers are central and state government employees for whom it is mandatory to invest in the scheme.

Remya Nair

8149 - PM Modi suggests Aadhaar-based e-tracking of pension cases - Business Today

PM Modi suggests Aadhaar-based e-tracking of pension cases

PTI    New Delhi   Last Updated: June 15, 2015  | 18:36 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suggested an Aadhaar -based online system to check delay in processing cases of pensions.

The Prime Minister during a recent video-conference, while discussing problems being faced by Defence pensioners, with senior government officials of Personnel and other ministries had "stressed the need for using Aadhaar based system solutions".

The Prime Minister suggested putting in place an e-tracking system to monitor delays in pension cases."He (had) also stated that e-tracking of pension matter would be a good step towards preventing delays," according to minutes of meeting held on June 3, on Aadhaar-based authentication of life certificate for pensioners.

"It was agreed that possibilities of the Online Tracking System for Pension Sanction and Payment (Bhavishya) being adopted by Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Defence, Department of Posts and Department of Telecommunications would be explored," it said.

Officials from Department of Financial Services (DFS), present during the meeting, informed that all banks have started accepting digital life certificates (DLCs). So far, 2,06,024 pensioners have submitted DLCs. Of these, 1,47,629 take pension through banks and 35,135 through Defence Pension Disbursement Offices.

There are about 55 lakh central government pensioners across the country.

Representatives of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) informed the meeting that Ministry of Railways, Indian Army and Indian Air Force have been appointed as registrars for enrolment for Aadhaar numbers.

There was a concern expressed by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) "over very high rate of rejection" of DLCs by the system , as the user tended to loose confidence in the process.

"It was agreed that for every rejection of the DLC, the system shall indicate the reason for rejection in the form of a speaking order. It was also hoped that during November, 2015, up to 50 per cent pensioners ought to avail benefit from 'Jeevan Pramaan'," the minutes said.

The Prime Minister had in November last year launched an Aadhaar-based biometric verification system Jeevan Pramaan to enable pensioners to submit a digital life certificate on-line.

Jeevan Pramaan aims at sparing the pensioners and family pensioners the trouble of visiting bank or any other pension disbursing agency for submission of life certificates.

The DeitY also stressed that UIDAI should facilitate, promote and encourage wide-spread use of Aadhaar number for delivery of public services. Aadhaar numbers of individual beneficiaries should be made available by UIDAI to government agencies on demand, as per the minutes of the meeting.

It was agreed that State Bank of India and UIDAI will organise a camp in Manipur as early as possible to facilitate employees or pensioner in getting enrolled for Aadhaar number and registering them under Jeevan Pramaan software.

It was once again pointed out that there were a number of glaring discrepancies in banks' data, including the number of pensioners above the age of 100 years and a large number of duplicate records in banks' databases. The DFS has once again been asked to instruct banks to get their data cleansed on priority.

During the meeting, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) informed that the posters and pamphlets for giving wide publicity to Jeevan Pramaan are ready for display in bank branches, ATM locations, wellness centres, railway dispensaries, defence canteens, etc. Willing agencies can obtain these posters and pamphlets from NIC, the minutes said.

It was also pointed out that contact numbers of some of the Common Service Centres (CSCs) being circulated were reportedly not correct.

"DeitY informed that 55,000 records have been cleaned. At present 6,000 CSCs are functional for Jeevan Pramaan."

Secretary (DeitY) expressed concern at this.

"He stated that CSC SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) should be asked to continuously update their databank and ensure that correct contact details are displayed at all points of time. Secretary (Pension) shared the concern," it said.

7916 - Soon, open your NPS account online, pay subscriptions too - Live Mint

FIRST PUBLISHED: TUE, MAY 05 2015. 03 11 PM IST

HOME»  POLITICS

Soon, open your NPS account online, pay subscriptions too

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority expects a deluge of new subscribers after a Union Budget sop that allowed extra tax deduction for investments in NPS

Remya Nair 

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had proposed to provide a deduction of up to Rs.50,000 over and above the savings limit of Rs.1.5 lakh for contributions made to NPS. 

Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

New Delhi: New subscribers will soon be able to open their accounts with the National Pension System (NPS) online.

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which is expecting a deluge of new subscribers after a Union budget sop that allowed extra tax deduction for investments in NPS, is planning to roll out this facility in the next few months.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had proposed to provide a deduction of up to Rs.50,000 over and above the savings limit of Rs.1.5 lakh for contributions made to NPS, as part of the government’s efforts to encourage old-age savings and pension through NPS.

“We are looking at the option of online membership. Customers can access the CRA (Central Recordkeeping Agency) website for all the necessary information and then log in and open an account. They can also pay their subscriptions online,” said R.V. Verma, member, PFRDA.

“The problem of KYC (know your customer) can be addressed by linking it with Aadhaar. E-KYC using Aadhaar is an acceptable proof,” he said.

E-KYC service provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been recognized as a valid document by the government for all financial services under the Prevention of Money-laundering Rules. All the subscribers have to do is authorize UIDAI to verify their identity and address to the financial institution.

“We are in the last leg. We should be able to offer this facility to subscribers before the end of this calendar year,” said Verma.

At present, subscribers have to go to a bank or any other agency designated as a point of presence by PFRDA. With more than 800 million of the country’s population having Aadhaar coverage, PFRDA is hopeful that a majority of the subscribers can open NPS accounts without visiting any agency.

It could also give NPS the much-desired push. Since its launch in May 2009, NPS has been at a disadvantage vis-à-vis other competing savings schemes such as the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and Public Provident Fund (PPF) because of the tax treatment of the final maturity corpus. While the NPS corpus is taxable on maturity, proceeds from EPF and PPF funds are tax-free.

Though NPS has more than 8.7 million subscribers with total assets under management of at least Rs.80,800 crore, the majority of subscribers are central and state government employees for whom it is mandatory to invest in the scheme.

Suresh Sadagopan, a Mumbai-based financial planner, said the option of opening an account online is a subscriber-friendly and well-timed move.

“NPS is a good product, the tax treatment of the final maturity amount being the only big disadvantage. Though the sop announced in the Union budget is not enough to nullify the disadvantage compared with similar products, we should see more people investing in the scheme this year,” he said.