NPS Fund Management Fees Falling Expected

MUMBAI, 10^th MARCH 2014: Two more fund houses entered in the management of National Pension System (NPS) corpus resulting in the fall of fun management charges. NPS corpus of around Rs. 40,000 crore is managed by 8 private and three government-owned fund houses. Tata Capital and Aditya Financial Services are the two new fund houses biding for management of the amount.

According to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), the current fund managers need to bid again for a license for new NPS fund management in unorganized sectors. The fund management fee was raised to 0.25% from 0.0009% and this is supposed to be fixed again on the basis of competitive bidding.

Hemant Contractor, MD of SBI is expected to be the chairman of PFRDA after clearance from the Central Vigilance Commission. According to the private sector fund house, 10 groups have applied out of which 8 would be given the license. The current eight fund managers are – HDFC Pension Management Company, Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund, DSP BlackRock Pension Fund Managers, UTI Retirement Solutions, Reliance Capital Pension Fund, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Company, SBI Pension Funds, LIC Pension Funds and UTI Retirement Solutions.

The recent National Pension System gave a return of around 12-14% during 2012-13 with 55 lakh subscribers and total amount of Rs. 40,000 crore. It had begun as the pension scheme for unorganized sector in 2004. Later the government decided to move all the employees under the NPS.