MUMBAI: To ensure regulatory guardrails around pension products while giving customers greater choice, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority plans to roll out a suitability platform that will assess NPS subscribers’ risk appetite and ask suitability-related questions before they select a scheme.“Suitability and risk appetite is something that we are focusing on. All the NPS screens, whether with a pension fund, on a CRA platform or the NPS Trust platform, will ask people the right questions. Their final choice of scheme is their choice, but our job is to determine their risk appetite in a better way,” PFRDA chairman S Ramann said.Ramann said lifecycle products were one way of addressing suitability. NPS has four lifecycle variants based on risk appetite, with asset allocation automatically changing as the subscriber ages.He was speaking at the launch of the NPS Preference Index Study 2026 by HDFC Pension. “The study shows that Indians are ageing, with average life expectancy at 78 years, while the average family size has declined to 4.4 members. Pension coverage, however, remains low at 17-18%,” said Sriram Iyer, MD & CEO, HDFC Pension Fund Management.The portion of respondents actively considering NPS for retirement rose six points to 59 from 2023, while among the drivers of savings, children’s education lost ground to emergency savings.Ramann said the higher EPF ceiling need not crowd out NPS, as employees can invest beyond it in other instruments. “Most corporates are giving their employees the option to put money into NPS through salary deductions,” he said. He said long-term investors need diversified portfolios, with equity exposure benefiting those invested for at least 15 years. PFRDA has expanded NPS investments to REITs, InvITs and alternative investment funds.
