Employees’ Provident Fund Organization has introduced new user-friendly rules that came into effect from April 1.
EPFO New Rules: Monday, April 1 marks the beginning of the new financial year and along with brings a few revisions to the guidelines regarding savings plans for employees. In this regard, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), starting April 1, will introduce a few significant changes.
According to the sources and various media reports, the new EPF rule will allow the automatic transfer of the employees’ funds when an individual changes jobs, i.e. their previous Provident Fund balance will be automatically transferred to the new employer account.
With this new rule, the employees/EPFO account holders will not be required to manually request transfer of funds when they join a new company. Up till now, despite having a Universal Account Number (UAN), individuals had to go through the lengthy and cumbersome procedure of transferring the funds.
Now, that will not be required.
Earlier in February, the EPFO’s provisional payroll data highlighted that EPFO had added 15.62 lakh net members in the month of December 2023, the highest in the previous three months. That marked an increase of 11.97% in registrations in net member addition as compared to November 2023.
The data said that around 8.41 lakh new members enrolled during December 2023, the highest during the previous three months.
The payroll data highlighted that approximately 12.02 lakh members exited and subsequently rejoined EPFO, a significant 12.61% increase compared to the previous month of November 2023.
At the same time, the EPFO announced a three-year high interest rate of 8.25 percent on employees’ provident fund (EPF) deposits for 2023-24. The EPFO had in March 2023 increased the interest rate on EPF marginally to 8.15 percent for 2022-23 from 8.10 percent in 2021-22.