The simplest way to ensure that you lead a stress-free and comfortable life after retirement is to invest during your working years. This way you can build a robust retirement corpus that stands up to inflation. One way of doing this is by investing in Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), a government scheme that helps working professionals create wealth. Both you and your employer contribute to it every month, throughout your working years.
Couple a long investment tenor with a lucrative interest rate, which currently stands at 8.65%, and you get a significant corpus at maturity. You can withdraw your PF balance on resignation or retirement, and even keep track of your PF balance over the years. This will not only help you monitor the performance of your investment, but also allow you to reallocate funds in order to optimise your returns and achieve your goals with ease.
Here’s how to check PF balance both online and offline in order to keep track of your investment.
Check your EPF balance offline
Checking your PF balance is simple and requires only a few minutes. You can do so via SMS or a missed call.
Through SMS
First, link your UAN number with your KYC details such as Aadhaar, PAN or bank account. Then,use your registered mobile number to send an SMS containing ‘EPFOHO UAN ENG’ to 7738299899.
Note that ‘ENG’ stands for the English language. You can also choose to receive the PF balance in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam. To do so, replace ‘ENG’ with the first three letters of your preferred language. For instance, send ‘EPFOHO UAN HIN’ if you want to view the message in Hindi.
Through a missed call
You can also check your PF balance by simply giving a missed call on 011-22901406 from your registered mobile number. To be able to do this, first register yourself on the UAN portal. Once you call on the given number, it will get disconnected after two rings and you will receive an SMS stating your PF balance shortly thereafter.
Check your EPF balance online
Alternatively, you can also check your PF balance online from the comfort of your home or office. Here’s how to check PF balance online.
Through the EPFO website using UAN
In order to check your PF balance online, visit the EPFO website and follow these steps:
- Login to the EPFO website
- Click on ‘Our Services’ and choose ‘For Employees’
- Click on ‘Member Passbook’ under ‘Services’
- Once the login page is open, enter your user name and password
- Next, enter the CAPTCHA code and click on ‘Login’ to view your EPF balance
Through the UMANG app
You can also check your PF balance via UMANG, an app that the Government of India has launched to give you access to over 1,200 government services including EPF. It supports English and multiple regional languages too. To check your PF balance using UMANG, follow these steps:
- Install and open the UMANG app on your handheld device
- Choose EPFO from the various options that are listed
- Once the EPFO page opens, click on ‘Employee Centric Services’
- ● Then, choose the ‘View Passbook’ option
- Now enter your Universal Account Number
- Click ‘Get OTP’ to receive the OTP on your UAN registered mobile number
- Once you enter the OTP, you can view a list of all your EPF accounts
- Click on an employer-specific EPF account in order to view its balance
Through the EPFO app
Apart from UMANG, you can check your EPF balance by downloading the EPFO app called m-Sewa. To do so, follow these steps:
- Download the app and install it
- Click on ‘Member’ and choose the ‘Balance/Passbook’ option
- Enter your Universal Account Number and the registered mobile number linked to it
- Wait for the system to verify your mobile number and display the PF balance
With these steps you can check your EPF balance in no time and plan your finances so that you can maximise returns for retirement. If you are nearing retirement or have recently retired, invest your PF maturity amount in Fixed Deposits offered by reputed issuers like Bajaj Finance to benefit from high returns. This FD also boasts of highest credit ratings by CRISIL and ICRA, assuring the safety of your principal and interest earnings.
In addition, your investments earn lucrative interest rates of up to 8.95% if you’re a senior citizen investing for at least 3 years with interest payable at maturity. In fact, you can earn returns equal to 51% of your investment amount when you invest in an FD for 5 years.
To ensure that you have a regular source of income, ladder your FDs after considering your liquidity needs and start an FD right now with as little as Rs.25,000.