EPFO Pension Update: Withdraw pension from any bank starting January 1st; read details

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has provided a major relief to pensioners associated with the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS) ahead of the new year. Starting today, pensioners can receive their pension from any bank, branch, or location in the country. This is expected to be a great convenience for people living in their hometowns after retirement.

A few days ago, the proposal for the Centralized Pension Payment System (CPPS) for the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995, was approved by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Bhupender Yadav, and the Central Board of Trustees of EPF. This new system will be available to employees from the new year. Approximately 7.8 million pensioners will benefit from the implementation of CPPS.

How will receiving a pension become easier? Under the current system, each EPFO zonal and regional office makes an arrangement with three to four banks individually. In such a situation, when a retired employee goes to his hometown, he faces difficulty in receiving a pension due to the lack of a branch in the bank account linked to EPFO. However, after the implementation of CPPS, receiving a pension will be easier.

In addition, pensioners will not need to go to any bank branch for verification after the pension starts. Once the pension is released, it will be immediately deposited into the bank specified in the employee's documents. Moreover, there will be no problem if a pensioner changes or switches banks or branches because CPPS guarantees pension distribution across India without the need to transfer a Pension Payment Order (PPO) from one office to another. EPFO believes that implementing the new system will save a significant amount of pension payment costs.

Eligibility for EPS Pension: The employee must be a member of EPFO and have completed 10 years of service. They must have attained the age of 58. They can withdraw their EPS at a reduced rate after completing 50 years of age. They can extend their pension for two years (up to 60 years of age). After this, they will receive an additional 4% pension every year.