The move, which comes ahead of its annual interest rate declaration, may help EPFO offset relatively low returns from debt investments this year, two officials aware of the matter said. “The organization has encashed its first tranche of equity investments it made in 2015. “The general sentiment is EPFO should not pay less than 8.65% interest rate in 2017-18. Banasure said that since EPFO went to stock market to improve its earnings, lowering the interest rate will be criticized. EPFO started investing in equity in August 2015 and by January, it had invested over Rs44,000 crore in equity through ETFs.

Source: Mint February 12, 2018 14:48 UTC