NPS assets surge 26% y-o-y to ₹11.94 lakh crore as of May 11: PFRDA

Riding on buoyant equity markets, National Pension System (NPS) assets grew 26 per cent year-on-year to touch ₹11.94 lakh crore as of May 11, according to the latest data from the PFRDA.

The overall Assets Under Management (AUM) of NPS, including that of Atal Pension Yojana (APY) and slightly below the ₹12 lakh-crore milestone mark, surpassed the end-March 2024 level of ₹11.73 lakh crore.

The rapid growth in NPS assets is evident, with the NPS assets reaching the ₹10-lakh crore mark just in August of the previous year.

It took six years and six months for NPS to reach the ₹1 lakh crore AUM milestone after its implementation in 2009, followed by a further increase to ₹5 lakh crore in 4 years and 11 months.

The AUM doubled to ₹10 lakh crore as of August 25 last year from ₹5 lakh crore within a span of just 2 years and 10 months.

Number of Subscribers

As of May 12 this fiscal year, the number of new NPS and APY subscriber registrations stood at 94,009, as per the PFRDA data.

On a year-on-year basis, the number of subscribers in the non-government sector as of May 11 grew by 8.77 lakh, while the increase in the government sector was 7.17 lakh.

In 2023-24, a total of 9.47 lakh new subscribers onboarded NPS from the non-government sector. Among these, 8.10 lakh subscribers opted for the ‘all citizen model’ and 1.37 lakh were corporate employees.

The robust growth in NPS assets in recent years has been propelled by both buoyant equity markets and an expanding NPS subscriber base, as more working-age Indians are focusing on retirement planning.

The non-government sector, consisting of corporates and retail segments, witnessed a 26.42 per cent year-on-year growth in its NPS assets as of May 11 this year, reaching ₹2.41 lakh crore.

Conversely, the NPS assets of the government sector increased by 24.12 percent to reach ₹9.19 lakh crore.

The number of new government employees enrolling in NPS during fiscal year 2023-24 stood at 7.10 lakh.

Equity Returns

The surging bull markets in equities have enabled pension funds to achieve an average annual return of 29.12 percent as of May 10, surpassing corporate bonds’ performance by over fourfold and outperforming Government Securities and State Government Schemes.

Over the past three years, pension funds have yielded an average return of 17.51 per cent in equities, with the returns since NPS inception standing at 13.38 per cent for equity investments.

As of May 10, corporate bonds recorded an annual return of 7.15 per cent, while Government securities saw a return of 7.49 per cent.

The annual return from Central and State Government schemes was at 9.91 per cent.

The total number of NPS and APY subscribers as of May 11 stood at 7.41 crore, depicting a 16.29 per cent increase from the 6.38 crore count a year ago.