Just like you can buy insurance at the click of a button or start investing in mutual funds online, you can now open your National Pension System (NPS) account online. The facility to open an account online was launched in August last year but as a pilot. It then hit a hurdle when in August the Supreme Court put some restrictions.
Subsequently, the Pension Fund Regulatory Authority (PFRDA) accepted permanent account number (PAN) and a bank-based KYC to open NPS accounts online. Since then, the courts have allowed the use of Aadhaar for eKYC but only if the customer prefers this method.
On 17 February 2016, PFRDA decided to allow the use of Aadhaar as e-KYC, which makes opening an account online much simpler.
“When we launched eNPS earlier on a pilot basis, we allowed for eKYC through Aadhaar card. But we had to discontinue after the Supreme Court restrictions on the use of Aadhaar as eKYC. Now that it has been clarified that it can be used as per customer’s choice and that it should not be made mandatory, we have allowed Aadhaar to be used as eKYC, through which a subscriber can open an NPS account instantly online,” said B.S. Bhandari, whole time member, economics, PFRDA.
