Retirement Adviser

“Retirement adviser” means any person being an individual, registered partnership firm, body corporate, or any registered trust or society, who desires to engage in the activity of providing advice on National Pension System or other pension scheme regulated by PFRDA to prospects/subscribers or other persons or group of persons and is registered as such under PFRDA (Retirement Adviser) Regulations, 2016.

Role of Retirement Adviser in promoting NPS and APY

• i) The Retirement Adviser shall advice the prospects or subscribers of the manner of filling the registration form for enrolment, exit forms, various other forms required to modify or change personal master details, nomination, Point of Presence, Pension Funds, investment choice and other related activities under National Pension System or other pension schemes;.
• ii) Creating awareness of National Pension System and other pension schemes regulated by Authority will be the core responsibility of the Retirement Adviser;
• iii) To facilitate on-boarding of the prospective subscriber to National Pension System or other pension scheme regulated by Authority;
• iv) To advise prospects on the necessity of old age income security, retirement planning, level of contributions they can make , having regard to their current and future potential income to achieve desired retirement objectives and other issues connected with taking of these decisions and avoid chances of mis-selling;
• v) To help prospects and other subscribers in planning for retirement savings;
• vi) The retirement adviser is expected to exercise professional due diligence while dealing with prospects and possess the necessary skills towards this end;
• vii) The retirement adviser shall allow a free and frank atmosphere while dealing with prospects, which shall allow them to take informed transactional decisions and for this purpose and shall keep the interest of the prospect/subscriber in the forefront;
• viii) The retirement adviser is required to collect and suggest prospects or subscribers, the most suitable scheme, taking into consideration the following aspects of the prospects and based on utmost good faith and fair market practices:
  
  • Due diligence on the requirements of the prospects to suggest them the most suitable products by collecting basic information of the prospects such as information pertaining to age, marital status, dependents, current assets, liabilities, income, planned purchases, planned retirement age; plans post retirement, family history of health and longevity and the current health position.
  • Identifying prospect’s financial and retirement goals.
  • Analyzing prospect’s current financial situation and current investments.
  • Risk profiling of the prospect or subscriber.
  • Asset Allocation
  • Investment allocation strategy
  • Periodic monitoring and balancing.
  • Likelihood of immediate and near future financial commitments of either self or family.
• ix) A Retirement Advisor will enable the subscribers to avail the benefits of pension schemes regulated by Authority by supporting them in making simple decisions about contributions, investments allocation and selection of Pension Funds.
• x) A Retirement Adviser shall partner with corporates and Government departments to run awareness programmes on retirement planning for their employees.
• xi) A Retirement Advisor shall be able to appropriately guide and advice the subscriber about the risk and return profiles of the different financial assets and also advise the most suitable ratio of fund allocation in each of the asset classes viz. Equity, Government Securities, Corporate Bonds after duly considering the profile of the prospect and prevailing market conditions, and expected growth in the various parameters of economy and financial markets. A retirement advisor shall not hold out any guarantee for the performance of any asset.
• xii) Retirement Advisors may create awareness on the fund performance of each pension fund including comparison of the returns of the scheme and investments made by the pension funds, on the basis of information made available or approved by Authority.
• xiii) Retirement Advisors would transmit information and documents to intermediaries in a time bound manner and maintain utmost confidentiality at all times of personal information collected from subscribers and shall not use it for any other activity without the consent of the subscriber.

Below are the links for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Retirement Advisers and the list of Registered (Individuals and Other than Individuals) / Deregistered Retirement Advisers: