Less than two months to go before the Centre opens up the civil servants? New Pension Scheme architecture to all citizens, the interim Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) is ensuring that all systems are in place for a smooth launch. While it has already short-listed six fund managers to manage citizens? pension, it is set to select service providers who will act as points of presence (PoPs) to collect pension contributions by this week.

A panel headed by HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh is expected to turn in its recommendations on the investment pattern to be adopted for citizens? pension scheme soon. The scheme for civil servants currently follows the investment pattern mandated for non-government provident funds by the finance ministry, which allows up to 15% investment in equities. The PFRDA is keen to utilise a further 10% equity window allowed by the finance ministry from this April.

Commercial bids for the PoPs will be opened on Monday and the eligible players will be announced this week. A number of banks including State Bank of India, Citibank, Axis Bank, Central Bank, Union Bank, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank have applied for the job along with the country?s largest life insurer?the LIC of India. The selected PoPs would be allowed to charge up to Rs 40 as the initial subscriber registration fee and Rs 20 for every subsequent transaction.

Surprisingly, the Department of Posts, which finds a special mention in the request for proposal, has decided to stay away. PFRDA had been keen to rope in post offices as collection centres due to their widespread reach.

?The department of posts did not apply for their own reasons. But we are confident that the reach of these banks and LIC will be the same as that of post offices,? an official with the PFRDA said.

While new fund managers and PoPs are being put in place for the citizens? pension scheme?the National Securities Depository Ltd, which is maintaining the pension contribution records of central and state government employees.

NSDL is required to bring down its account maintenance costs by 20% from Rs 350 per account to Rs 280, once the number of workers under the NPS crosses a million. In a bid to bring down the record-keeping costs, which has been a prickly issue for states like Rajasthan, the PFRDA has decided that government employees? and citizens? accounts will be consolidated in order to calculate NSDL?s fees, going forward.

After commercial bids for fund managers were opened on Friday, UTI AMC has emerged as the lowest bidder with a fund management fee of Rs 9 for every Rs 10 lakh under management, while SBI Pension Fund, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, IDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mutual Fund and Reliance Capital AMC are the other contenders chosen from the 20 financial institutions that had put in bids.

Selected bidders would be required to match the lowest bidder?s costs by UTI-AMC. The PFRDA along with its investment adviser Mercer Human Resource Consulting will now iron out these issues and award the contracts.

The Life Insurance Corporation of India?s pension entity, one of the fund managers for civil servants? pension scheme, did not qualify because of its high fees.

Others who were disqualified include IDBI Capital Markets, Birla Sun Life MF, and HDFC MF. Bajaj Allianz, Bharti AXA and the Securities Trading Corporation of India Ltd were disqualified on technical grounds.