Private sector driving NPS asset growth with 39% year-on-year growth to Rs 2.42 lakh crore as on June 8

The latest PFRDA data showed that, driven by strong private sector growth, the National Pension Scheme’s (NPS) total assets under management (AUM) increased by 28 per cent to Rs 12.28 lakh crore as on June 8.

The private sector, which has been the main reason for the rapid growth in NPS assets in recent years, continues to lead the way with an impressive year-on-year growth of 39.02 per cent to ₹2.42 lakh crore as on June 8, it showed.

However, this is much less than the government sector’s NPS assets under management of Rs 9.43 lakh crore, which grew by 25 per cent year-on-year.

• Read: Are you investing in NPS? Know your limits

As of June 8, the number of private sector subscribers – both corporate and citizen-wide – stood at 56.47 lakh, up 18.53% year-on-year.

The number of subscribers in the Corporate category was 20.13 thousand. There are approximately 15,900 companies in the NPS and India has 93 lakh government subscribers in the NPS.

The growing importance of the private sector in the NPS is evident as its share in AUM increased from 13.1% in March 2019 to 20% in March 2024.

The share of private subscribers in NPS also increased from 21.6%. in March 2019 to 37.5 percent in March 2024

In 2023-24, as many as 9.47 lakh subscribers (both government and private sector) have NPS installed. Of these 9.47 lakh new subscribers, as many as 8.10 lakh subscribers were part of the ‘all citizens model’ and 1.37 lakh were corporate employees.

• Read: NPS assets up 26% year-on-year to Rs 11.94 lakh crore as on May 11: PFRDA

Number of new NPS and APY subscriber registrations by June 9 this year. was 1,47,901, according to PFRDA data.

PENSION ASSETS As % of GDP

In India, pension assets as a percentage of GDP is around 16.5 percent, while the same ratio in developed countries like the UK, US and Australia is over 100 percent.

The same percentage of OECD countries in 2022 was 81%. Moreover, for some Scandinavian countries, such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Iceland, it was over 200% in 2021.

NPS GROWTH JOURNEY

The rapid growth in overall NPS assets is evident as they touched the Rs 10 lakh crore mark only in August last year.

PFRDA data showed that the total NPS assets increased by Rs 2 lakh crore in nine months.

After its implementation in 2009, NPS took six years and six months to achieve the milestone of Rs 1 lakh crore AUM. It then took four years and 11 months to further increase the AUM to Rs 5 lakh crore.

NPS AUM doubled to Rs 10 lakh crore as on August 25 last year from Rs 5 lakh crore in just two years and ten months.