Retirement fund body Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is planning to invest Rs 22,500 crore in exchange traded funds (ETFs) in the financial year 2017-18, following the approval of its trustees to enhance investments in equity from 10 percent to 15 percent.
In the month of May, the EPFO’s apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) had approved the proposal to increase the investments in exchange traded funds from 10 percent to 15 percent of the investible deposits. Consequently the estimated investment in ETF for the current fiscal is around Rs 22,500 crore.
The EPFO has invested Rs 6577 crore in ETFs in 2015-16, while the figure for 2016-17 stood at Rs 14,982 crore. According to EPFO, the cumulative return on investment has been over 13 percent since it started investing up to 5 percent of its over Rs 1 lakh crore investible amount in ETFs in August 2015. In 2016-17, the proportion of these investments was raised to 10 percent which would further be raised to 15 percent for the current fiscal.