Pension Bill finally sees the light of the day; paves way for 26% foreign investment in sector

05 Sep 2013 Evaluate

After nearly a decade, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill finally saw the light of the day with Lok Sabha clearing the decks for the bill for creating a modern pension system with a statutory regulator to serve 460 million workers. The bill, which had been hanging in fire since 2005, when it was first introduced in the Parliament, is an important economic legislation that paves the way for foreign investment in the sector. 

The bill allows 26% foreign investment in the Pension sector and gives statutory backing to the interim pension authority that had been functioning on executive authority for over a decade now. It also gives more teeth to the pension regulator, PFRDA to create a social security architecture that channels savings of households into the financial sector. Currently, PFRDA regulates the National Payment System (NPS) through a trust that has entered into agreements with fund managers, points of presence that collect money from subscribers, and record-keepers.

However, this bill empowers the PFRDA to regulate the NPS and other pension schemes that are not covered under any Act. The scheme has a corpus of Rs 35,000 crore from nearly 53 lakh subscribers, a majority of whom are government employees.

However, the bill was passed by the lower House after some tough political negotiations that included the government accepting a crucial suggestion made by the parliamentary standing committee on finance headed by BJP's Yashwant Sinha. The government agreed to stipulate that the pension regulator will ensure that fund managers offer at least one product with an assured minimum return to protect investors from market volatility. This investment option will be in addition to the schemes that are already available.

In return, however, the opposition party, BJP agreed to the proposal to allow foreign investors acquire up to 26% stake in the sector with the rider that the foreign investment limit will be hiked if the cap for insurance is raised to 49%, as has been suggested by the government.

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