PFRDA to introduce new life cycle fund option by September

New Delhi: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority will introduce a new life cycle fund option with up to 50% equity by September, its chairman Deepak Mohanty said on Friday.

Mohanty said the tapering age will be increased to 45 years from the existing 35 years and some more changes will be brought in to provide greater exposure to equity markets.

The new scheme will be effective in the next quarter, maybe in August or September, he said.


Currently, there are three life cycle fund options, named LC 75, LC 50 and LC 25, which are also known as Aggressive Auto Choice, Moderate Auto Choice and Conservative Auto Choice, respectively.

Life cycle fund provides an option of investment to subscribers and allocation of equity and debt depends on the option chosen by them. There are different investment choices (Auto/Active) for tier-1 and tier-2 National Pension Scheme (NPS) accounts.

On Atal Pension Yojana (APY), Mohanty said 1,24 crore new subscribers were added in 2023-24, with 52% of them being women. Since its inception 6.6 crore subscribers have been added under APY, he said, adding that it is rapidly gaining popularity among women and the younger generation in the country. APY enrolment target is 1.3 crore subscribers during the current financial year, he added. The enrolment under NPS (non-government) was 9.7 lakh in 2023-24 and is expected to go up to 11 lakh in this fiscal, he said.

If markets function normally, the total corpus, including APY, should increase to Rs 15 lakh crore in 2024-25 from Rs 12.4 lakh crore at the end of 2023-24, Mohanty said.