Can NPS be advertised as ‘safe’ when ETFs cannot?

The pension regulator got a bit of a beating last week on Twitter. The chatter was around a National Pension System (NPS) advertisement issued by the regulator calling a market-linked product “safe”. The ad, which can be seen here: http://mintne.ws/1SVoozI , calls the NPS a “safe retirement fund”. The anger, predominantly in the mutual fund space, is around allowing a market-linked product to advertise itself as ‘safe’, when half the money of an investor can be invested in an actively managed portfolio of stocks. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) may have been closer to the word ‘safe’ before 10 September 2015 (http://mintne.ws/1NObGeq ) when NPS funds could be invested only in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that mimic broad market indices like the S&P BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty, but now that they can actively manage stocks, it is not just market risk but fund manager risk that they face. At a time when the capital market regulator—so say some newspaper reports—is considering adding the words “fund manager risk” to market risk in its disclaimer, this PFRDA ad is causing heartburn.

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