PFRDA Empowering Citizens to Access and Share their Data via Account Aggregator Framework
Part 1 of 3 in PFRDA Series
PFRDA is one among the four financial sector regulators who are currently participating in the Account Aggregator Framework. Recently PFRDA announced the information available on Account Aggregator framework as well as the role of data providers role in the ecosystem. This is a significant step towards empowering citizens by strengthening their social security.
Pensioners, especially the senior citizens, who have contributed to our economy over the past several decades, stand to benefit from PFRDA being live on Account Aggregator framework. They can securely share their pension data with other regulated entities with a single click on their mobile. Let us learn more about PFRDA and its role in AA.
What is PFRDA?
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) established by the Government of India to promote old age income security and governing institutions involved in Pension Funds. Its primary aim is to protect the interests of subscribers to schemes of Pension Funds. Citizens who have subscribed to the pension scheme are referred to as Subscribers.
National Pension Scheme is a low cost, retirement savings scheme for employees in Central and state government and private sectors. Atal Pension Yojana is a Pension Scheme launched by the Government for the benefit of citizens working in unorganised sectors. As of 28th February 2023, there were 1.7cr NPS Subscribers with investments in National Pension scheme and more than 4.5cr Subscribers were enrolled under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY).
Subscribers sharing their NPS Pension fund data via Account Aggregator
As per the circular issued in September 2022, PFRDA has authorised Central Record Keeping Agencies (CRAs) to act as Financial Information Providers (FIPs). NPS Subscribers can share their data via an Account Aggregators (AAs) to Financial information Users (FIUs).
To understand the data sharing structure, lets look at the key stakeholders in NPS:
- National Pension System Trust authorised by the Government to taking care of the funds and schemes under NPS, with Subscribers as the Trust beneficiaries
- Central record keeping agencies (CRAs) are Agencies responsible for the recordkeeping, administration and providing related customer service for all the NPS Subscribers under any NPS scheme. They issue unique PRANs to subscribers and also act as operational interface for all intermediaries.
- Custodian of securities who provide custodial and depository participant services to NPS Subscribers
- Other Intermediaries such as
- Pension funds receive funds from Subscribers and manages the corpus through various schemes under NPS
- Retirement adviser includes Individuals and non-Individuals who act as adviser to NPS Subscribers in respect of PFs
- Point of Presence includes entities which provide point of interaction between Subscriber and NPS architecture
- Point of Presence – Corporate provides such interaction to its own employees
- Point of Presence – SE is an assignee of POP which performs one or more activity of POP as per the regulation
- Aggregators (perform subscriber interface functions under NPS-Swavalamban)
As CRAs are at the helm of book-keeping and records, PFRDA has authorised CRAs to act as Financial information providers under AA. Click here to read more about CRAs
Other intermediaries registered and regulated by PFRDA can act as FIUs for both data shared under NPS and also other Financial Regulators participating in AA. Get in touch with us to onboard AA as an FIU.
NPS Subscriber Data available for sharing via AA
NPS Subscribers can share their fund details with Financial information Users using AA. In January 2023, ReBIT published following FI schema to be made available for each PRAN account:
- Profile: Basic Profile details Account Owner
- Summary: Summary value of accounts under Tier I and Tier II Holdings
- Transactions
Click here to read more about the PFRDA data being shared as per ReBIT standards.
