Aided by strong show in the private sector, the overall National Pension System (NPS) assets grew nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, as of August 31, to touch ₹13.06 lakh crore, latest PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority) data showed.
Private sector assets (non-government sector) grew a robust 41.68 per cent year-on-year basis to touch ₹2.62 lakh crore, as of August 31, on the back of buoyant equity markets and growing subscriber base in the non-government sector.
Meanwhile, the number of subscribers in private sector as of August 31 stood at 58.71 lakh, up 9.77 lakh on a y-o-y basis - a 20 per cent rise on a y-o-y basis.
A strong-showing from the private sector had helped NPS assets record a robust 30.5 percent y-o-y growth in 2023-24 to touch ₹11.73 lakh crore as of March end 2024.
Meanwhile, Atal Pension Yojana (APY) assets touched ₹39,959.35 crore as of August 31, up 32.20 per cent y-o-y basis.
APY target for this fiscal: 1.3 crore subscribers
The PFRDA had onboarded 1.2 crore APY subscribers in 2023-24. This fiscal, the target is 1.3 crore. So far this fiscal the net addition in APY subscriber base stood at about 30 lakh.
Private sector growth this fiscal has been better across all schemes including APY. It must be noted that private sector has been the key reason behind NPS assets’ sharp increase in recent years.
PFRDA Chairman Deepak Mohanty had recently said that the pension regulator has a target of overall NPS assets of ₹15 lakh crore by end of March, 2025.
The number of new NPS subscriber registrations till August 31 stood at 3,82,221, PFRDA data showed.
PFRDA is now aiming to onboard about 11 lakh new NPS subscribers from private sector. In the previous fiscal, 9.7 lakh private sector employees had enrolled for NPS.
The rapid growth of overall NPS assets is evident from the AUM, which grew from about ₹1 lakh crore in 2015 to ₹10 lakh crore in August last year.
Equity returns surpass corporate bonds
The continued bull run in equity markets has helped pension funds record a robust average annual return of 37.93 per cent as of August 30. The returns from equity has comfortably surpassed Corporate Bonds by over four fold, and outperformed the Government Securities and State Government Schemes, latest PFRDA data showed.
Over the past three years, pension funds achieved an average return of 18.08 per cent in equities, with returns since NPS inception coming in at 14.37 per cent for equity investments.
As of August 30, Corporate Bonds recorded an annual return of 8.44 per cent, while Government securities saw a return of 10.35 per cent.
The annual return from the Central and State Government schemes stood at 12.94 per cent and 13.02 per cent respectively, data showed.
The total number of NPS and APY subscribers as of August 31 this year stood at 7.73 crore, up 16.17 per cent from 6.65 crore a year ago.