EPFO subscribers may look forward to credit of interest

With the General Elections over, subscribers to the Employees Provident Fund can look forward to the credit of interest on their retirement savings for 2023-24.

While the EPFO’s apex decision-making body, the Central Board of Trustees, had in February approved an interest rate of 8.25% for the FY24, the formal notification is still awaited by the finance ministry. According to sources, this has been pending due to the model code of conduct and is likely to be taken up in the coming weeks and could be done by early July.

Last year, the finance ministry had notified the interest rate for FY23 in the middle of July.

Following the recommendation of the CBT, the rate of interest has to be approved and notified by the finance ministry. Once notified by the ministry of finance, the EPFO begins crediting interest into the accounts of subscribers. Typically this exercise is done in the first quarter of the fiscal.

In response to a user query in April this year on X platform (formerly known as Twitter), the EPFO had said that the process is in pipeline and may be shown there very shortly. “Whenever the interest will be credited, it will be accumulated and paid in full. There would be no loss of interest,” it had said.

However, since then the EPFO has not responded to similar queries by subscribers, many of whom have questioned the delay in credit of interest. Subscribers had welcomed the announcement of the higher interest rate for FY24. Previously in FY23, the EPFO had provided an interest rate of 8.15% and in FY22, it had announced a rate of 8.1%.

For the FY23, the EPFO had in a post on March 14 said that it had credited interest into 28.17 crore member accounts.