The National Pension System (NPS) investments are made in four categories of asset classes: equity, corporate debt, government bonds and alternative investment funds. The investors can choose any of the pension fund managers to manage their investments.
There are a total of 10 pension fund managers (PFMs) out of which three were added only recently. Hence, the historical data is available for only seven of them.
These fund managers are SBI (State Bank of India) PF, LIC (Life Insurance Corporation) PF, UTI (Unit Trust of India) PF, ICICI PF, Kotak PF, HDFC PF and Birla PF.
The one-year returns on equity investment range between 5 and 7 percent across these fund managers whereas the past three-year returns are as high as 14-16 percent. At the same time, the past five-year returns are 10-12 percent.
| Pension fund managers | 1-year | 3-year | 5-year |
| SBI | 5.18% | 14.50% | 10.94% |
| LIC | 7.02% | 15.53% | 10.82% |
| UTI | 5.58% | 14.88% | 10.98% |
| ICICI | 4.93% | 15.15% | 11.42% |
| Kotak | 5.77% | 15.47% | 11.05% |
| HDFC | 5.22% | 15.56% | 12.00% |
| Birla | 5.95% | 14.26% | 10.83% |
(Source: NPS; equity returns)
As one can see from the table above, the highest 1-year returns of 7.02 percent were given by LIC PF, while the lowest of 4.93 percent were given by ICICI PF.
As far as three-year returns are concerned, the highest returns of 15.56 percent were given by HDFC PF whereas the lowest were given by Birla at 14.26 percent.
When it comes to the five-year returns, the highest returns were given by HDFC PF at 12 percent and the lowest returns of 10.82 percent were given by LIC.
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Meanwhile, a survey of the available tax-saving options revealed that the National Pension Scheme (NPS) is a better bet than equity-linked savings schemes (ELSS) to save taxes in 2023.
“NPS is a great asset class if you can hold till maturity. It is a low-cost product compared to mutual funds ELSS schemes, and its biggest advantage is the long-term lock-in feature," Rajani Tandale, Product Head – Mutual Fund, 1finance.co.in, told MintGenie.
