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The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has set up an 18-member advisory committee to help frame regulations for developing a robust pensions system in the country.
The move comes eight months after the PFRDA law got notified on February 1 this year, giving the regulator the much-needed statutory backing.
The setting up of the advisory panel — Pension Advisory Committee (PAC) — is an important step and the final stage of structural arrangement for finalising the regulations for the pension sector, RV Verma, Acting Chairman of PFRDA, told BusinessLine here. With the setting up of the PAC, there will be a more focused and structured stakeholder consultation before regulations are finalised, he said.
As many as 12-13 draft regulations are currently under the process of receiving public feedback and these are then expected to go through the newly set up PAC before being taken up by the PFRDA Board for final approval, Verma said.
The draft regulations that had been already exposed to the public include pension funds management, points-of-presence regulations, aggregator regulations, customer grievance regulations and exit regulations.
“By end-November, we expect all the 12 regulations to be notified (after PFRDA Board approval),” Verma said. The newly set up PAC has drawn representatives from industry, Government departments, regulatory bodies, research outfits and also pension fund managers.
Some of the members of the PAC are Ajay Shah, Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; GN Bajpai, Chairman, National Pension Systems Trust; Ashu Suyash, Director, Association of Mutual Funds of India; Chandrajit Banerjee, Director-General of Confederation of Indian Industry; and PK Choudhury, Chairman and Group CEO, ICRA, a rating agency. Besides the 18 members, the PAC will have the PFRDA Chairman and PFRDA members as ex-officio chairperson and ex-officio members respectively. The banking sector is fully on board with representatives from the Reserve Bank of India (at the level of chief general manager) besides the Chief Executive of Indian Banks’ Association.
The panel also has representatives from the Clearing Corporation of India, National Stock Exchange, Labour Ministry, SBI Pension Funds, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds and NSDL e-governance Infrastructure.
Expanding marketCurrently, PFRDA is not looking at bringing any structural change to the pension sector, but is clearly focused on the approach and philosophy of expanding the market.
“We are keen to expand the number of players in the pension space,” Verma said.
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