The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority vide its notification dated September 3, 2021 has issued the guidelines for facilitating timely transfer of withdrawal amount in the Bank Account of Atal Pension Yojna (APY) Subscribers and also as an additional due diligence to protect their corpus lying in the Permanent Retirement Account Number.
The existing mode of premature withdrawal under APY is examined from time to time by PFRDA based on the inputs/suggestions received from various stake holders and the changes are proposed with suitable technological intervention.
There could be two scenarios at the time of exit which are explained as under:
- If the SB account details of subscribers at the time onboarding & exit are the same:
- APY subscriber should incorporate the field indicating active status of savings bank (SB) account in the revised exit file format provided by CRA which is mandatory from 15 September, 2021.
- Further “Instant Bank Account verification by penny drop” shall also be undertaken by CRA to verify the operative status of SB Account as part of enhanced due diligence.
- If the SB account details at the time on-boarding & exit are not same, different Account Number of same Bank or the different Bank.
- Subscribers are advised that the APY closure proceeds be credited to the same bank account number and may accept the request with a different account number or account of a different bank only as an exception. Such requests are to be accompanied by proof of alternate account number acceptable to the bank, as per the PFRDA circular.
- “Instant Bank Account verification by penny drop” shall be undertaken by CRA as part of enhanced due diligence including the name matching between PRAN and Bank Account Number.
- The applicable charges for Instant Bank Account verification would be recovered by CRA from the respective PRAN for further reimbursement to the service provider. The prevailing charges for verifying Bank Account Number through penny drop is Rs. 2.40/- and tax.
