Mumbai, September 10 (IANS). During the 'Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026' organized in the country's financial capital Mumbai, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Chairman Sivasubramaniam Raman on Thursday said that technology is going to be the biggest medium to expand pension coverage in India. He said that a large population of the country works in the unorganized sector and is not a regular wage earner. To provide pension facility to crores of such people, PFRDA has developed NPS Tatkal platform, which will work on UPI-based digital system.
Speaking to the media, he said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stressed the need for a simple and accessible pension system like UPI and in the same direction, NPS has been immediately developed, through which people will be able to open a pension account through a few clicks on mobile phones and later can also make contributions directly through UPI.
Raman further said that the e-Shram database available with the Labor Ministry will play an important role in this campaign. It is a certified and comprehensive database in which most of the information required to open a pension account is already available.
He said that PFRDA aims to connect workers registered in the database with the pension system through a simple digital process. For this, multilingual and user-friendly technical solutions are being developed so that people from different regions of the country can easily avail this facility.
The PFRDA Chairman said that developing a guaranteed return-based pension product is part of the statutory responsibility of the authority. He said that the government has included a guarantee mechanism in the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for government employees, but the biggest challenge for the private sector is to develop the institutional framework to provide the guarantee.
He informed that an expert committee is working on this subject and various options are being considered. PFRDA is working on several products which can form the basis of guaranteed return schemes in future.
Raman informed that PFRDA has developed an innovative product called 'Swasthya', the proof of concept of which has been successful. The final guidelines for this scheme will be issued soon and it is set to be formally launched in the next 30 days.
Talking to the media, he further said that this system will give people the additional benefit of health security along with their pension savings. If a person requires hospitalization, he will also be able to avail the benefit of top-up health insurance along with his deposit amount. Giving an example, he said that if a person bears hospital expenses of Rs 10,000 on his own, a top-up insurance plan can provide additional coverage of Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000.
He said that if a person does not need health expenses, his savings will keep growing with market returns and a large corpus will be ready at the time of retirement.
Meanwhile, SEBI Executive Director Maninder Cheema, while speaking to IANS, said that the bond market in India is gradually becoming popular among retail investors and OBPPs (Online Bond Platform Providers) have played an important role in this.
He said bonds with potential yields of up to 12 percent or 14 percent attract investors, but it is important to understand the risks before investing. He said that with the help of technology, information about bond quality, rating, default risk and other aspects can be easily made available to investors.
Cheema further said that higher returns also come with higher risk, hence retail investors should get complete information before investing in any bond and should not take the investment decision only by looking at high interest rates.
–IANS
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