Pension fund regulator PFRDA on Monday said it has introduced one-time password (OTP) based onboarding facility for the National Pension System (NPS) scheme.

In its endeavour to provide digital solutions, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has already enabled the opening of online NPS account in a paperless manner through e-signature, it said in a statement.

To further facilitate ease of NPS Account opening, the subscribers are now permitted to open their NPS account through OTP also, PFRDA said.

In this process, the customers of banks (registered as POPs - Points of Presence), who wish to open an NPS account through internet banking of the respective banks, can open such accounts using OTP received on their registered mobile number.

For the opening of NPS accounts through non-internet banking digital mode through POPs (banks as well as non-bank POPs), OTP received on their registered mobile number, and e-mail can be used for paperless NPS account opening.

Post completion of KYC (Know Your Customer), POPs have to submit the NPS subscriber’s data/information to Central Record Keeping Agencies (CRAs) along with customer’s photo and image of signature with an undertaking that the KYC/AML guidelines/rules have been duly complied with, it said.

The POPs and CRAs have been advised by PFRDA to provide the required functionality of OTP-based authentication, the pension fund regulator said.

This process would ensure seamless account opening, end-to-end digitization and optimizing of investment returns by the deposit of contributions in a faster way, it said.

PFRDA administers more than 3.60 crore subscribers under the National Pension System with an aggregate Assets Under Management (AUM) of more than ₹4.55 lakh crore.

Out of the total subscribers, 2.25 crore subscribers are under the Atal Pension Yojana

Published on June 29, 2020

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