New Delhi, Jun 16 (PTI) Retirement fund body EPFO on Monday cautioned its members against taking help from third-party agents and advised using online portal for services related to their provident fund accounts to avoid exposure risks to key details. The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has taken a series of reforms to make services faster, transparent and user-friendly for all its stakeholders, a labour ministry statement said. EPFO has more than 7 crore members who are employees or ex-employees of various private and public sector enterprises. It has been observed that several cyber cafe operators/fintech companies are charging EPFO members large sums of money for services that are officially free, it stated. In many cases, these operators simply use EPFO’s online grievance portal, something any member can do on their own, free of cost. The stakeholders are cautioned against visiting or engaging with third-party companies or agents for EPFO-related services as this may expose their financial data, the statement said, adding these external entities are not authorised by EPFO. It further said that EPFO has a robust grievance monitoring and redressal system wherein the member grievances are registered on CPGRAMS or EPFiGMS portals and are monitored till their resolution in a time-bound manner. A total of 16,01,202 grievances were received in EPFiGMS and 1,74,328 in CPGRAMS in FY25. Out of these, 98 per cent of the grievances were resolved within timelines. EPFO strongly advises all its members, employers, and pensioners to utilise the online services available through the EPFO portal and UMANG app. All EPFO services, including claim filing, fund transfers, KYC updation, and grievance redressal, are entirely free of cost and members should not pay any fees to third-party agents or cyber cafes for services that can be easily accessed online. Further, members can contact EPFO helpdesks/PROs at regional offices as listed on the official website (www.epfindia.gov.in) for any issues, it said. The EPFO has recently issued circulars for simplification of KYC or member details correction and for submission of transfer claims, deployment of functionality for auto settlement of advance claims up to ₹1 lakh and Centralized Pension Payment System (CPPS) for simplifying the pension disbursement process. The limit of auto claim settlement facility was enhanced to ₹1 lakh for advances on the grounds of illness, housing, marriage and education, resulting in 2.34 crore claims settled in auto mode in FY 2024-25. The transfer claim process has also been simplified from January 15, 2025 by removing the requirement of employer approvals in most of the cases. The EPFO has removed the requirement of uploading of the image of cheque leaf/attested bank passbook for speedy settlement of claims filed online and to reduce the rejection of claims. Also, the requirement of employer approval for seeding bank account details with UAN (unique acco in a formal or creative style for better SEO.Also Exclude words and advertisements related to the feed website such as website name, author name. You must only respond with the modified content. Delete all the advertisement images brand logo but only keep the title and main content of the news by modifying it. You must only respond with the modified content. 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The EPFO warns its members to avoid seeking assistance from agents when using online services.
