New Delhi, June 16: EPFO has cautioned all its members against visiting or engaging with third-party companies or agents for EPFO-related services, as this may expose their financial data to third-party entities. These external entities are not authorised by EPFO and may charge unnecessary fees or compromise the security of personal information of members, according to an official statement issued on Monday.

It has been observed that several cybercafe operators/fintech companies are charging EPFO members large sums of money for services that are officially free. These services are transparent and can easily be accessed by members as the process has been made very simple, the statement explained.

In many cases, these operators are simply using the EPFO’s online grievance portal, something any member can do on their own, free of cost, from the comfort of their homes.

EPFO has strongly advised all its members, employers, and pensioners to utilise the online services available through the EPFO portal and the UMANG app.

All EPFO services, including claim filing, transfers, KYC updation, and grievance process, 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, the members can contact EPFO helpdesks/PROs at Regional offices as listed on the official website (www.epfindia.gov.in) for any issues.

The official statement highlighted 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 FY 2024-25. Out of these, 98 per cent of the grievances were redressed within timelines.

Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has taken a series of reforms designed to make EPFO services faster, transparent and user-friendly for all its stakeholders. These initiatives are part of EPFO’s commitment to deliver hassle-free, secure and efficient services to all its stakeholders.

EPFO, in recent times, has 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 Rs 1 lakh and Centralised Pension Payment System (CPPS) for simplifying the pension disbursement process.

The limit of the Auto Claim settlement facility was enhanced to Rs 1 lakh for Advances under Illness, Housing, Marriage & Education, resulting in 2.34 crore claims settled in auto mode in FY 2024-25. The transfer claim process has also been simplified, with effect from January 15 this year, by removing the requirement of employer approvals in most cases.

The online facility provided for member profile correction has been simplified using Aadhaar authentication. The dependence on the employer and EPFO for member profile correction has been done away with, in most cases. The online de-linking facility has enabled members to delink the wrong member ID from their UAN and thus has resulted in a reduction of grievances.

The allotment and activation of UAN is being done through the UMANG APP using Face Authentication Technology (FAT). By availing this facility, the member gains immediate access to EPFO services such as passbook viewing, KYC updates, claim submission, etc.

EPFO has removed the requirement of uploading the image of a cheque leaf/attested bank passbook for the 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 has been removed from April 2025. (IANS)

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