India Business Journal - Pension funds can now invest in gold, silver ETFs as PFRDA eases investment norms

INDUSTRY

Pension funds can now invest in gold, silver ETFs as PFRDA eases investment norms

IBJ Bureau
Dec 12, 2025

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has allowed pension fund managers to expand the investment universe to include gold and silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The PFRDA has also permitted pension funds to invest in top-250 listed companies from exposure to 200 for companies earlier.

The new measures are designed to maximise returns for the retirement corpus under the National Pension System (NPS) and Unified Pension System (UPS),

The pension regulator has issued revised investment guidelines for both the government sector and the non-government sector to align the norms further with subscribers’ appetite for higher returns, while balancing the risks.

Assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry crossed Rs 80 lakh crore in November. NPS’s AUM for both government and non-government sectors stood at Rs 16.46 lakh crore as of November 30, 2025.

According to the revised norms, for subscribers of the government sector (UPS/NPS/APY schemes), a new sub-category has been introduced under Asset-Backed, Trust-Structured and Miscellaneous Investments (Category-V) to allow investment in units issued by gold and silver ETFs regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The aggregate investment in gold and silver ETFs is limited to 1 per cent of the AUM of respective schemes.

For private-sector subscribers too, the PFRDA has allowed investment in units issued by gold and silver ETFs regulated by the SEBI. The regulator has capped the total investment in units of REITs, equity-oriented AIFs and gold and silver ETFs to 5 per cent of the aggregate AUMs of the schemes.