National Pension System (NPS) withdrawal guidelines: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has permitted Points of Purchase (POPs) to procedure the exit/withdrawal applications of NPS subscribers based on soft copies. However, they will have to guarantee that the regulations on processing exits are complied with.
As aspect of further due diligence, the beneficiary bank facts have to be necessarily verified and matched, ahead of authorizing the request of withdrawal based on soft copies. Further, all such records will have to be simultaneously and compulsorily transmitted to CRA by means of soft copy. The POPs
would be solely accountable must any dispute arise out of such transactions at a later date.
The pension regulator has taken the above selection in view of the Covid pandemic. “Covid induced hardships continue unabated and in order to alleviate the difficulties being faced by the Subscribers in submitting physical applications for exit/withdrawal and the logistical challenges faced by POPs in collecting those applications to process and dispatch the same to CRA, it has been decided to relax the process of handling withdrawal applications by POPs in the interest of Subscribers,” PFRDA stated in a circular.
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” PoPs are now permitted to procedure the exit/withdrawal applications based on the soft copies just after making certain that the regulations on processing exits as described in Chapter III 15 (2c) of POP Regulations are complied with,” the regulator stated.
Important date
PFRDA stated that the relaxation to POPs will be permitted till 30th June 2021 by which time the ‘online paperless exit process’ based on OTP/e sign is anticipated to be rolled out by CRA for the advantage of Subscribers. “From 1st July 2021, POPs are expected to be geared up to process the exit requests
of the Subscriber by authorizing the exit documents uploaded by the Subscriber in the CRA system and for which guidelines already issued,” it added.
Old rule
Last year, POPs had been permitted to accept the scanned and self-certified photos of exit documents by means of digital indicates to procedure the withdrawal requests of the Subscribers. However, the physical applications of these withdrawals applications had been to be submitted by POPs to the respective Central Record Keeping Agency (CRA) for storage and record maintaining.