New Year, New PF Rules: Watch Out For These Changes Coming In January 2025

With the new year kicking off, new personal finance rules will be effective from January 2025. There are changes specially around fixed deposit, credit cards and UPI payments. As some of these changes directly impact withdrawals, access and spending, you need to be aware of them. Here are the changes taking place in Jan:

The revised guidelines address the acceptance of public deposits with regards to nominations, repayment of public deposit to meet emergency expenses, intimation of maturity of deposits to depositors are the changes among others.

A few regulations that apply to Non-Bank Financial Institutions have also been revised. These new norms including the ability to withdraw smaller amounts, will be effective from Jan. 1, 2025, according an RBI circular.

A notable change here includes the ability to withdraw the principal in case of health emergency. In case of critical illness, the full amount of the principal sum of deposit, can be paid to individual depositors ahead of maturity. This can be done on depositor's request before the expiry of three months from the date of acceptance of such deposits, without interest.

The Employee Provident Fund Organisation has been looking for a digital revamp in terms of portals and grievance systems. The Central Pension Payment System, part of the EPFO’s IT modernisation project, is reportedly going to be operational by Jan. 1, 2025. This is set to allow members of the Employee Pension Scheme to take their pensions from any bank branch in India.

There have also been reports of an ATM card-like withdrawal system that will accompany the digitalisation of the system. These changes are also expected early on in 2025.

There is one major change in this space as the National Payments Corporation of India puts out a revised system.

The updated guidelines for RuPay credit cardholders will introduce tier-based spending criteria for exclusive airport lounge access. Cardholders who meet certain spending thresholds will reportedly be eligible for free lounge visits, with specific conditions for different spending tiers.

The central bank has some changes in place, starting on January 1, 2025. Users will be able to make UPI payments via third party apps for full-KYC prepaid payment instruments. The move will enable PPI wallet holders to use third party application to make transactions using UPI.

Further, the NPCI has also increased the limit of UPI 123Pay from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000, according to the NPCI circular.