Central Recordkeeping Agency
Also written CRA · Central Recordkeeping Agency (CRA) · Central Record-keeping Agency · NPS recordkeeper
The intermediary that holds every NPS subscriber record — it issues the PRAN, unitises contributions at scheme NAV and sits between the subscriber, the pension funds and the trustee bank.
In plain language
The National Pension System is deliberately unbundled: no single entity does everything. The CRA is the piece that remembers who you are and what you own.
It does not manage your money — pension funds do that. It does not hold your money — the trustee bank does that. It does not hold the securities — the custodian does that. What the CRA does is maintain the account, issue the PRAN, convert every rupee of contribution into units at the day's NAV, and pass instructions to everyone else.
The workbook calls it the core intermediary of the NPS, and the subscriber chooses which one to use.
How it works
Three CRAs operate the NPS: Protean eGov Technologies, KFin Technologies and Computer Age Management Services (CAMS). A subscriber opening online through eNPS picks the CRA directly; through a Point of Presence, the PoP chooses, and every PoP must publish all CRAs and their charges on its website or app.
The workbook lists the CRA's functions, of which these are examinable:
- Generating the PRAN and maintaining the PRAN database and every transaction against it
- Issuing the PRAN card, User-ID, I-PIN and T-PIN
- Unitising contributions based on scheme NAV and routing instructions to the trustee bank and pension funds
- Sending the annual pension account statement within 2 months of the end of the financial year
- Running the Central Grievance Management System (CGMS)
- Processing exit and withdrawal requests, and coordinating with the trustee bank and the annuity service provider
- Servicing changes of scheme, fund manager, demographic detail and nomination
A worked example
A private-sector subscriber opens a Tier-I account online and asks for a physical PRAN card.
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| CRA — PRAN opening, physical card | Rs 40 (Rs 18 for an electronic PRAN kit) |
| CRA — per-transaction charge | Nil |
| CRA — annual maintenance, private sector | Rs 0 to Rs 500 by Tier-I corpus slab |
For comparison the workbook gives Rs 100 per account in the Government sector and Rs 15 under APY / NPS-Lite. All figures are exclusive of GST.
How a rupee charge becomes units. The workbook's own illustration: a subscriber owes a charge of Rs 100 and holds two schemes 50:50 with NAVs of Rs 12.50 and Rs 20. The CRA does not raise an invoice — it cancels units:
Rs 50 from scheme 1 → 50 ÷ 12.50 = 4.0 units cancelled
Rs 50 from scheme 2 → 50 ÷ 20.00 = 2.5 units cancelled
The account balance falls by Rs 100 and the subscriber never writes a cheque. That mechanism — unit cancellation at NAV — is what makes the NPS charge structure invisible in cash flow and very visible in the corpus, and it is why the workbook stresses that costs "have a significant impact on the accumulation of corpus".
Why NISM asks about it
Chapter 4 (Retirement Planning Products: National Pension System), section 4.1.1, lists the CRA among the NPS intermediaries, and section 4.1.4 sets out its charges alongside the PoP, pension fund, custodian and NPS Trust. Chapter 9 covers the registration conditions. The examinable pattern is matching a function to the right intermediary — who issues the PRAN, who holds the funds, who holds the securities, who declares the NAV — and the three-way unit-cancellation arithmetic above, which appears as a numerical question.
Common exam traps
- The CRA is not the trustee bank and not the custodian. The CRA keeps records and unitises; Axis Bank holds the cash as trustee bank; Deutsche Bank holds the securities as custodian; the pension funds declare the NAV.
- There are three CRAs, not one. Protean, KFin and CAMS. A question naming only Protean is usually testing whether you know it is not a monopoly.
- The CRA does not declare NAV. Pension funds compute and declare it daily; the CRA uses it to allot units and to measure fund performance.
- Charges are per transaction for some intermediaries and per annum for others. The CRA has no per-transaction charge under the current schedule; the PoP charge moved to 0.20 percent of AUM per annum from 1 January 2026.
- Annual maintenance is slab-based in the private sector, from zero to Rs 500 by Tier-I corpus — not a single flat figure. The flat figures are Government sector (Rs 100) and APY/NPS-Lite (Rs 15).
- Grievances go through the CRA's CGMS, including grievances against the PoP itself, which the PoP must upload daily.
Check yourself
1.Which NPS intermediary charges the subscriber nothing at all?
- a)The Central Recordkeeping Agency
- b)The Point of Presence
- c)The Trustee Bank
- d)The Pension Fund
Show the answer
Answer: (c) The Trustee Bank
Trustee Bank (Axis Bank): NIL charge to the subscriber.
Every other intermediary in the list charges something:
- CRA — PRAN opening Rs 18 electronic or Rs 40 physical, with annual maintenance from Rs 0 to Rs 500 by corpus slab in the private sector, Rs 100 in the Government sector and Rs 15 under APY/NPS-Lite
- PoP — Rs 200 one-time onboarding (Rs 100 fully digital) plus 0.20% p.a. of AUM
- Pension Fund — the slab-based Investment Management Fee
Also charging, though almost invisibly: the Custodian at 0.000000001770% per annum and the NPS Trust at 0.003% per annum of AUM.
⚠️ The broader point the workbook makes: ULTIMATELY, THE SUBSCRIBER BEARS THE CHARGES — whether paid upfront, recovered by cancelling units, or deducted while computing the NAV. All figures are exclusive of GST.
2.How long is a Retirement Adviser's certificate of registration valid, and when must renewal be applied for?
- a)Five years, with renewal applied for one month before expiry
- b)Three years, with renewal applied for three months before expiry
- c)Permanently valid unless suspended or cancelled
- d)One year, renewable annually on payment of a fee
Show the answer
Answer: (b) Three years, with renewal applied for three months before expiry
⚠️ "The certificate of registration SHALL HAVE A VALIDITY OF 3 YEARS FROM THE DATE OF ISSUE. THE APPLICATION FOR RENEWAL OF THE CERTIFICATE SHALL BE MADE 3 MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRY of the period of validity."
Renewal is not a formality: ⚠️ "THE RENEWAL OF APPLICATION SHALL BE TREATED IN THE SAME MANNER AS DURING THE INITIAL GRANT OF CERTIFICATION." Every requirement — qualification, certification, fit and proper — is tested afresh.
⚠️ And past conduct is weighed: "PFRDA MAY ALSO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE PERFORMANCE OF THE RETIREMENT ADVISER DURING THE ORIGINAL PERIOD OF CERTIFICATION INCLUDING THE NUMBER OF NEW ACCOUNTS OPENED."
⚠️ Option (c) describes the CRA's certificate, which "SHALL REMAIN VALID, UNLESS SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED BY PFRDA, OR PERMITTED TO BE SURRENDERED... FOR JUST CAUSE TO BE SHOWN." Different intermediary, different rule.
One more prohibition to carry: ⚠️ "A REGISTERED RETIREMENT ADVISER MAY NOT DELEGATE, TRANSFER OR LEND ITS CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION TO ANY THIRD PARTY."
3.A stock market crash in year 3 of retirement wipes 30 percent off the value of bucket 3. What does the bucket strategy prescribe?
- a)Top up bucket 3 from the safer assets in bucket 2 to restore its target value
- b)Do nothing — the lower risk bucket is refilled from a higher risk bucket and never the other way, and bucket 3 has 15 to 20 years to recover
- c)Move all of bucket 3 into bucket 1 immediately to stop further losses
- d)Suspend all withdrawals from bucket 1 until markets recover
Show the answer
Answer: (b) Do nothing — the lower risk bucket is refilled from a higher risk bucket and never the other way, and bucket 3 has 15 to 20 years to recover
The workbook uses this exact example. ⚠️ "THE LOWER RISK BUCKET WILL BE REFILLED FROM A HIGHER RISK BUCKET AND NEVER THE OTHER WAY. FOR EXAMPLE, IF THERE IS A STOCK MARKET CRASH THEN THE FALL IN VALUE IN BUCKET 3 WILL NOT BE MADE UP FROM THE SAFER ASSETS IN BUCKET 2. SINCE THE FUNDS IN BUCKET 3 ARE REQUIRED 15 TO 20 YEARS IN THE FUTURE, IF NOT MORE, THERE IS SUFFICIENT TIME FOR THE FUNDS TO BENEFIT FROM A MARKET RECOVERY AND AN UPTURN."
Option (a) would import the crash into money that IS needed soon — precisely the mistake the rule exists to prevent.
Option (c) crystallises a paper loss into a real one at the worst possible moment. This is the sequence-of-returns risk that exhausted the 1994 back-test portfolio seven years early in Chapter 3.
Option (d) is unnecessary. The retiree in year 3 spends from bucket 1, which holds cash, laddered fixed deposits, SCSS and POMIS — none of which has moved at all.
⚠️ This is the strategy's real contribution: it turns a market crash from an emergency into a non-event, by guaranteeing that nothing being sold this year is invested in anything that crashed.
Where this is taught
Free preparation for NISM Series X-ARelated terms
- Net Asset ValueThe net assets of a mutual fund scheme divided by the number of units outstanding — what one unit of the scheme is worth on a given day, after every liability except the unitholders' own.
- Active ChoiceThe NPS investment option under which the subscriber sets the split across the E, C, G and A asset classes personally, subject to a 75 percent cap on equity and 5 percent on alternatives.
- Multiple Scheme FrameworkThe PFRDA framework, effective 1 October 2025, that lets non-government NPS subscribers hold branded pension-fund schemes alongside the existing Common Schemes under a single PRAN at each CRA.
- National Pension SystemA PFRDA-regulated, defined-contribution retirement scheme in which the subscriber builds a market-linked corpus and must convert part of it into an annuity at exit; there is no guaranteed return.
- Permanent Retirement Account NumberThe unique account number issued when an NPS account is opened; it stays with the subscriber for life and across employers, which is what makes NPS portable in a way EPF historically was not.
- Atal Pension YojanaA government-guaranteed defined-pension scheme for unorganised-sector workers, paying a fixed Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 a month from age 60 for contributions started between ages 18 and 40.