Common Schemes

Until 2025, an NPS subscriber essentially had one menu of investment options — Active Choice, or one of the Auto Choice life-cycle funds. Then PFRDA allowed pension funds to launch additional, more specialised schemes alongside that original menu.

To tell the two apart, the original menu got a name: Common Schemes.

Under the Multiple Scheme Framework (MSF), introduced by PFRDA Circular No. PFRDA/2025/09/REG-PF/01 dated 16 September 2025, effective 1 October 2025, a subscriber — identified by PAN — may hold and manage multiple NPS schemes through a single PRAN at each CRA. The schemes that already existed as on the date of the circular continue and are referred to as Common Schemes — that is, the pre-existing Active Choice and Auto (Life Cycle) choices.

Newly introduced schemes under the MSF are called MSF schemes or Section 20(2) schemes, and each requires PFRDA's prior approval. The distinction between the two carries real limits: Common Schemes remain capped at 75% equity allocation, while an MSF scheme's high-risk variant may go up to 100% equity — a departure the MSF specifically permits. Total charges under the MSF are capped at 0.30% of AUM per annum, and MSF schemes carry a minimum vesting period of 15 years, subject to exit at age 60 or retirement.

Pension Funds design MSF schemes around specific subscriber personas — for example, digital or platform workers, the self-employed, or corporate employees — with each scheme's name required to include "NPS" and its objective (such as Growth, Wealth Builder, Pension or Pay-out). Around nineteen branded MSF schemes were functional at the latest count. If an MSF scheme winds up, a non-choosing subscriber is migrated to the Life Cycle 50 (Moderate) Auto Choice of the same Pension Fund.

Mr Fernandes has held an NPS Tier I account under Active Choice since 2018, with his equity allocation capped at the standard 75% ceiling that applies to Common Schemes. In November 2025, his Pension Fund launches an MSF scheme branded "NPS Growth Plus," targeted at younger private-sector subscribers, with a high-risk variant permitting up to 100% equity.

Mr Fernandes's existing Active Choice holding is unaffected and continues exactly as before — it remains a Common Scheme, still capped at 75% equity, still under the same PRAN. If he actively chooses to also open the new "NPS Growth Plus" MSF scheme alongside it, he would then be holding multiple schemes under a single PRAN, as the MSF framework permits, with the MSF scheme itself subject to its own 15-year minimum vesting period and the 0.30% AUM charge cap — rules that do not apply to his original Common Scheme holding.

Chapter 4, in the coverage of the Multiple Scheme Framework (a live 2025 regulatory change), defines Common Schemes as the necessary contrast to MSF/Section 20(2) schemes. Expect a question distinguishing the equity caps (75% for Common Schemes versus up to 100% for an MSF high-risk variant) and the vesting/charge rules that apply only to MSF schemes.

• "Common Schemes" is a label applied retrospectively to the pre-existing Active and Auto Choice options — it does not describe a new product; it describes what already existed before the MSF circular.
• 75% is the equity cap for Common Schemes; up to 100% is permitted only in an MSF high-risk variant — this is the single most tested numeric contrast in this topic.
• The 0.30% AUM charge cap and 15-year minimum vesting period apply to MSF schemes, not to Common Schemes — do not apply MSF-specific rules to an ordinary Active or Auto Choice holding.
• A subscriber can hold both a Common Scheme and one or more MSF schemes under the same PRAN — the MSF adds choice, it does not replace the Common Scheme.