The Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has rolled out universal account number (UAN) for all its subscribers. This is a move aimed at easing transfer of provident fund (PF) accounts on switching jobs and also useful for claim settlements.
“UAN stands allocated to all 4.17 crore (41.7 million) members who have made contribution to EPFO in any one of the last six months,” EPFO said in a circular to its field officers. The UAN has been disseminated to respective employers through the online transfer claim portal (OTCP) of the EPFO.
Employees will be able to operate the UAN once these are made operational from October 15. The EPFO has requested employers covered under it to seed the know-your-customer (KYC) documents such as Aadhar, National Population Register (NPR) number and bank account details of their employees with UANs by September 15. The EPFO has allocated the UAN to active members at present and will soon roll out the facility for the non-active accounts.
With this facility, employees will merely need to update their employee identity numbers provided by the new employer in their UANs when switching jobs and their accounts will be automatically shifted, reducing time in transfer of PF.
The advantage of allotment of UAN to an employee is so that he does not have to go through his or her employer to provide details to EPFO. Their claims would also be settled faster once savings bank accounts are seeded with UANs.
