The Central Board of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in it's 219th meeting chaired by Union Minister of labour & Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar took some key decisions in order to provide better services to its stakeholders by focusing more on IT based initiatives. 

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EPFO approved to move towards the Centralised Payment System using National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) platform. 

Currently, decentralized system of EPFO for making payment to its beneficiaries involves higher cost of transactions, delays in recredits in case of failed transaction and does not provide for AADHAAR enabled payments. 

Gangwar tweeted saying, "The board also approved a proposal for centralised payment system for EPFO using National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) platform, which would not only reduce transaction charges but also bring more convenience."

The board expects using NPCI platform, funds will be transferred on the same day to the beneficiaries. 

It added, "Office may reconcile the transaction status on T+0 basis.  This will result in early recredit in the accounts of beneficiaries in the case of failed transactions."

Further the EPFO introduced online Adhaar Verified UAN allotment to any citizen at Unifed Portal. 

Universal Account Number (UAN) is mandatory for filing the returns and depositing the contributions.  However, the establishments face difficulties in seeding Aadhaar details of the employees. 

The board said, "To obviate this difficulty, an open functionality has been introduced through which any citizen / present prospective employee can generate his/her UAN on the basis of Aadhaar and link his KYC details. The registration facility is available at Member Interface in the Unified Portal   It being an online facility, there is no need to submit any physical documents."

Going ahead, the retirement-fund body gave green signal to a for crediting exchange traded fund (ETF) units to provident fund accounts of its subscribers.

Apart from the board also introduced online request functionality to EPF Subscribers for correction in details like Name, Date of Birth and Gender, etc.