One may question whether such a move was necessary, as the NPS is dedicated to retirement planning, a goal that may be decades away. Investors treat NPS differently as they combine investment vehicles into different baskets. “Investors should not treat NPS differently; This is just one more investment towards your retirement goal. Consider Entire Retirement Portfolio – NPS, EPF, PPF, mutual funds or insurance investments for retirement, etc- to get a holistic picture,” says Anil Lobo, Advisor – Retirement and Employee Benefits. More importantly, NPS as an investment medium has now matured and there is enough historical data to analyze and decide whether you want to continue with the same fund manager or not.
The value of investing Rs 5,000 per month over 5 years varies widely across funds
The difference in returns means that clients should review their investments.
when to review
Experts say that NPS subscribers should also regularly assess their fund managers, as a small gap now will become bigger in the long run. “Due to the effect of long term compounding, the final corpus may vary significantly with these return differences. Hence, review all long-term investments every year and also review the NPS portfolio like you do with mutual fund schemes,” says Rajan Krishnan, Founder Director, Retyrsmart.com.
Like other investment options, these reviews can also be based on specific events. While there is no need to react to all news events, you do need to review if there are any fundamental changes – such as changes in fund management, changes in style in fund management, etc. As of now, this is not a major concern as incidents like this are very rare in NPS.
how to review
Since NPS is also NAV driven and linked to market forces, its review process may be similar to mutual funds, First, see if your fund manager is underperforming others. This comparison should not be based on short term returns of 1-3 months, but on reasonable long term returns like 1-3 years. The purpose of this exercise is to decide whether you should review your NPS manager. Please note that what we are suggesting is just a review and not a change due to one year’s poor performance.
5 year SIP Returns Tier I Scheme
Once you find that your fund manager is underperforming, the next step is to investigate the reasons. “Check why the scheme is performing poorly. You can continue with the plan if a specific strategy has led to poor performance and you are confident about that strategy,” says Amol Joshi, Founder, PlanRupee Investment Services. Afraid to do this kind of analysis? “If you think you won’t be able to do this review yourself, seek help from an investment advisor,” says Lobo.
you have to shift all
Tax efficiency in such fund manager shifts is one of the biggest advantages of NPS. While shifting from one mutual fund to another will attract tax, switching between fund managers will be tax neutral due to the open architecture of NPS.
However, NPS imposes a restriction here – you can have only one fund manager. As can be seen from the tables, HDFC Pension Fund is the best performer for Equity and Corporate Debt category. However, LIC Pension Fund is the top performer in the government bond category. Since you do not have the option of investing in Equity Schemes from HDFC Pension Fund and Government Bond Schemes from LIC Pension Fund, you should take a decision on the basis of total returns. The table is calculated by assuming 50% in equities, 25% in government bonds and 25% in corporate debt. Please recalculate the returns based on your investment ratio to get your final overall return.
Also review asset allocation
Like the annual fund manager review, asset allocation review is also required on a regular basis. How many times should I do this? “Since the business cycle is getting shorter and consequently the returns of asset classes are changing significantly, there is a need to change the quarterly asset allocation,” says Krishnan. However, NPS imposes restrictions here and you are allowed to shift between plans only twice in a year. “Since asset allocation is critical in the accumulation phase, switch between plans twice a year,” says Lobo.