Retirement Planning Blogs

Due to the rising cost of healthcare and the uncertainty of market returns, financial security in retirement has become a main concern. Fixed deposits or provident funds may provide some safety, but they cannot ensure a lifelong, regular income.

That's where annuity plans have a role to play. For 2025, insurers and financial institutions have come up with better annuity products, factored for different stages of life and needs.

Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) is mainly intended to build a corpus for retirement. However, sometimes financial needs can arise even before your retirement. For this purpose, EPF withdrawal Form 31 allows employees to withdraw a portion of their EPF savings.
You can withdraw funds for various personal reasons such as buy a house, for loan repayment, medical emergency, marriage, and higher education.
Let’s learn more about how Form 31 for EPF withdrawal works.

Employee Provident Fund is an important aspect of financial planning for all working individuals in India. Therefore, an EPF passbook balance check to know the current balance in your EPF account is crucial, as it helps to manage savings effectively. You can use the United Mobile Application for New Age governance app, known as UMANG, to check your EPF balance. In this post, we will guide you on how to start the PF balance check process online using the UMANG app, its benefits, and features.

All Indian residents have access to the National Pension Scheme (NPS), a preferred retirement planning tool. But did you know that the NPS is also available for Non-Resident Indians? Yes, you read it right. As per current rules, Non Resident Indians (NRIs) can also invest in NPS and get benefits similar to NPS Tier 1 account for resident Indians. This guide outlines how NPS for NRI scheme works to help you plan your pension corpus being as an NRI.

Choosing between lump sum vs annuity payouts is a crucial consideration that retirees must make when deciding how to receive retirement benefits. An annuity is a pre-determined amount paid out at regular intervals which may be monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or yearly. On the other hand, lump sum payments are relatively larger sums of money paid out in one go. Keep reading to know more differences and make an informed decision regarding which one suits your retirement planning needs.