Pension Capital
PFRDA forms panel to attract foreign pension capital into India
This story was originally published at 22:27 IST on 8 July 2026
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NEW DELHI - The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority has formed a panel called 'ASCEND' - Accelerated Scaling of Global Capital Ecosystem and NPS Development, to lay down a strategic roadmap to attract long-term global pension capital into India through collaboration between Indian pension funds and leading global pension funds. Former chairman of State Bank of India Dinesh Khara, who is currently the chairman of NPS Trust, will head this panel.
"By strengthening the role of Indian pension funds as trusted domestic partners for global institutional capital, the ASCEND panel aims to enhance infrastructure financing, accelerate NPS asset growth and reinforce India's position as a preferred destination for long-term investment," PFRDA said in a release. "Global pension funds manage one of the world's largest pools of long-term capital and are well suited to finance Indian infrastructure and other nation-building assets," it said.
The committee has five other members, including former Securities and Exchange Board of India whole-time member Ananth Narayan, chairman of Team lease Services Ltd. Narayan Ramachandran, managing director of Ashwin Parekh Advisory Services Ashwin Parekh, Trustee of NPS Trust Arvind Gupta, and Chief Executive Officer of NPS Trust Suparna Tandon.
The panel will recommend measures to enable Indian pension fund managers to partner with global pension funds through coinvestment platforms, strategic partnerships and innovative investment structures. "Such collaboration is expected to channel stable, patient capital into India's infrastructure sector, deepen domestic capital markets and support sustainable economic growth," PFRDA said. These partnerships will also help deliver long-term risk adjusted returns to the National Pension System subscribers.
According to the release, the committee will be focused on creating policy, regulatory and governance framework that facilitates greater participation of global pension investors, while safeguarding subscriber interests and financial stability.
Currently, 10 pension fund managers operate under PFRDA -- LIC Pension Fund Ltd., SBI Pension Funds Pvt. Ltd., UTI Pension Fund Ltd., HDFC Pension Fund Management Ltd., ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Co. Ltd., Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund Ltd., Aditya Birla Sun Life Pension Fund Management Ltd., Tata Pension Fund Management Pvt. Ltd., Axis Pension Fund Management Ltd., and DSP Pension Fund Managers Pvt. Ltd. Together, they manage a pension corpus of INR 17.50 trillion. End
Reported by Priyasmita Dutta
Edited by Avishek Dutta
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