Multiple Scheme Framework

For most of its life the NPS offered one shape of product: pick an asset mix under Active Choice or Auto Choice, and the pension fund runs it. Everybody got the same schemes.

The Multiple Scheme Framework lets pension funds design and brand their own NPS schemes — aimed at particular kinds of subscriber, such as gig and platform workers, the self-employed, professionals, or corporate employees — and lets a subscriber hold several of them at once.

The old offerings did not go away. They were renamed. Active and Auto choices are now collectively the Common Schemes; the new ones are MSF schemes, or Section 20(2) schemes after the enabling provision of the PFRDA Act, 2013.

Introduced by PFRDA Circular No. PFRDA/2025/09/REG-PF/01 dated 16 September 2025, with effect from 1 October 2025, for Non-Government Sector subscribers only.

The rules the paper can test:

• A subscriber is identified by PAN, and may hold multiple schemes under a single PRAN at each CRA, and multiple PRANs across different CRAs.
• Each MSF scheme must offer at least two variants — a moderate variant and a high-risk variant.
• In the high-risk variant, equity may go up to 100 per cent — a deliberate departure from the 75 per cent cap that still binds the Common Schemes.
• Total charges are capped at 0.30 per cent of AUM per annum.
• The minimum vesting period is 15 years, subject to exit at age 60 or at retirement.
• Every scheme needs prior PFRDA approval, a "Scheme Essentials" disclosure and a risk-o-meter; its name must contain "NPS" and its objective — Growth, Wealth Builder, Pension or Pay-out.
• Exit, withdrawal and annuitisation continue to be governed by the PFRDA (Exits and Withdrawals under NPS) Regulations, 2015, as amended. The MSF changes what you invest in, not how you get out.
• If a scheme is wound up, a subscriber who makes no choice is migrated to the Life Cycle 50 (Moderate) Auto Choice of the same Pension Fund.

About nineteen branded MSF schemes were functional at the workbook's latest count.

A 42-year-old self-employed subscriber with a Rs 50 lakh Tier-I corpus compares an MSF high-risk variant against staying in the Common Schemes.

Equity headroom:

Common Scheme, Active Choice:  75% of 50,00,000 = Rs 37,50,000
MSF high-risk variant:        100% of 50,00,000 = Rs 50,00,000
Extra equity available                          = Rs 12,50,000

Cost, using the workbook's own charge figures for a non-government subscriber:

Note what falls out of this: the MSF's 0.30 per cent all-in cap is tighter than the stacked Common-Scheme charges on this corpus, while permitting far more equity. That combination — more risk available, less cost permitted — is exactly the trade the framework was built to offer, and it is the kind of comparison a Retirement Adviser is expected to be able to make.

The catch is the 15-year minimum vesting period. A 42-year-old clears it comfortably by 60; a 50-year-old switching into an MSF scheme does not, and would be locked to 65.

Chapter 4, section 4.2.2, introduces the Multiple Scheme Framework immediately after Active and Auto Choice, and Chapter 4's intermediaries section notes that pension funds may offer customised scheme choices under it. This is new material and new material gets examined. Expect the 0.30 per cent charge cap, the 15-year vesting period, the 100 per cent equity permission in the high-risk variant, the two-variant minimum, and the renaming of the old choices to "Common Schemes" as direct recall questions.

• The MSF is for Non-Government Sector subscribers only. Government-sector subscribers have their own expanded menu of six choices from December 2025, which is a different thing.
• 100 per cent equity is the high-risk variant, not the framework. The moderate variant is the other mandatory variant, and the 75 per cent cap still binds every Common Scheme.
• 0.30 per cent is a cap on total charges, not a fee. It is the ceiling the scheme may not cross, and it is expressed per annum on AUM.
• Exit rules did not change. Annuitisation and withdrawal remain under the Exits and Withdrawals Regulations, 2015 as amended. A question implying the MSF relaxes the annuity requirement is wrong.
• The 15-year minimum vesting period is the real constraint for a late joiner — it binds independently of age 60, subject to exit at 60 or at retirement.
• "Common Schemes" is a new label for an old thing. Candidates who learned Active and Auto Choice under the earlier framework must recognise the renamed term in a question stem.
• A scheme wind-up does not return your money. A non-choosing subscriber is migrated to LC50 (Moderate) of the same pension fund.