Postal department may be Points of Presence for NPS

Given their enormous reach, the postal department may well be the next points of presence of the new pension system to distribute the schemes on a larger scale as it has drawn lukewarm response after it was thrown open to all citizens.

"We (PFRDA and P&T) are already in discussion... They may join. That's the expectations," a Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) official told PTI.

Point of presence (PoPs) are contact and collection points for customers wanting to be part of NPS.

He added that the interim pension regulator PFRDA would like to have P&T (Post and Telegraph) department as its PoP for the NPS due to their enormous reach. However, the only difficulty is that these centre should have IT facility.

"Because the whole system is designed with IT capability. So the postal department has to find out that how many of their branches have those IT capability," he added.

The  distribution of system received a big blow after the country's largest insurer Life Insurance Corp (LIC) ceased to be PoP following a directive from the sectoral regulator IRDA.

IRDA asked insurance companies to set up a subsidiary if they want to be Points of Presence (PoP) under the New Pension System.