EPFO mulling multiple bankers' facility for PF deposits

Retirement fund body EPFO is working on the idea of having multiple bankers to handle its provident fund returns instead of depending upon its sole banker State Bank of India.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's advisory body the Finance Audit and Investment Committee (FAIC) in its meeting today firmed up the view on recommending multiple bankers, a source said.
Now, the recommendation will be put before the perusal and approval of the EPFO's apex decision making body the Central Board of Trustees' (CBT) headed by Labour Minister, the source said.
Once approved by the CBT, an amendment in the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme 1952 by the government would be sufficient to make the decision effective.

Earlier in August, the EPFO had provided a facility to firms having accounts in any of the specified 56 banks for making payment of their PF dues online through its official web portal or through SBI portal.
A senior official said that with EPFO switching over to the facility of multiple bankers, it would have accounts in different banks in the country.

The official said that this will help firms to have seamless credit of money into EPFO's accounts with any time lag. Besides it would reduce dependence on just one bank.
EPFO has a subscriber base of over five crore and it manages around Rs 6 lakh crore with annual incremental deposits of over Rs 70,000 crore.

In a recent review of the EPFO performance by its Central Provident Fund Commissioner K K Jalan, it was noted that by end of October more than 75 lakh claims were settled in the current fiscal.
Out of these claims, 97.56 per cent were settled within the mandated 30 days and more than 69 per cent of the claims were settled within 10 days of the receipt.
Also, more than 98 per cent of the annual (PF) accounts due for compilation have been updated by EPFO by October end and 13,500 grievances were disposed of during the month.
EPFO received over Rs 7,409 crore as contribution towards social security schemes run by it in October.