Employees' Provident Fund Organisation

Deepak says, I'm 56 and will retire from my job in June 28.

Till now, all my portfolio is in mutual funds and majority in equity, debt part is in NPS, EPF, some FDs.

Since I'm nearing retirement, I wish to bring down my equity exposure and move to debt.

The financial planner is pushing hard to buy a single premium insurance policy, but I am resisting.

Alongside that, you add insurance companies, pension funds.

Remember, EPFO and pension funds have also been increasing their exposure to equity markets and individuals are also putting in money.

So pension funds, insurance companies, EPFO individuals was another 2.7 lakh crores of demand for equities, both through primary markets and secondary markets.

So domestic demand for equity during FY25 was 8.8 lakh crores, a record high.

This was again twice as high as the previous high that we've seen.

And, you know, I can give you some examples.

For example, things like the EPFO rate.

Yeah.

Right? The Employees' Provident Fund rate is, is unnaturally high.

It's, I think, 3% above the RBI's policy rate, repo rate, right? What does that tell us? That this class is managing to convince the politicians or convince the state because what is...

EPFO is in some ways a middle class instrument of saving, right?

Mm-hmm.

So in some ways, and in some ways, you've also written, you've actually said a very...

That's all we need to do, you know? And, uh, and, uh, and, uh, we want to have a decent margin also, you know, uh, so that we can consistently, uh, uh, pay good dividends to all our stakeholders.

Don't forget, EPF is also our shareholder, you know?

Yes, yes.

And EPF, you know, I'm also putting my money into EPF, you know-

Of course

... you know, uh, so that it can s- consistently pay around 5, 5 1/2 to 6 1/2%, you know, to, to, to, to, to the contributors.

That it...

And then there's also EPF contribution to foreign workers.

This kind of thing, everything comes together on-

Right

4% is money market fund.

Mm.

Then 6% is your EPF, right? 8% and above, 8% is probably your dividend, uh, banking stocks in Malaysia.

You've got a mix of capital gains and dividends, right? So about 8% return.