Facing EPF, EPS issues? Don't pay cyber cafes, fintech firms or agents for help, says EPFO

Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has cautioned members against taking help from third-party agents, including fintech firms, for online services. It has also advised members to rely only on EPFO’s online portal for services related to their provident fund (PF) accounts.

“It has been observed that several cybercafe operators/fintech companies are charging EPFO members large sums of money for services that are officially free. 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,” the Ministry of Labour and Employment said in a release dated June 16, 2025.

“The stakeholders are cautioned 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 authorized by EPFO and may charge unnecessary fees or compromise the security of personal information of members,” it added.

The release further said that EPFO has taken a series of reforms to make its services more efficient, transparent, and user-friendly for its stakeholders.

“These initiatives are part of EPFO’s commitment to deliver hassle-free, secure and efficient services to all its stakeholders.”

Over 7 crore employees of various private and public sector companies are beneficiaries of the EPFO, using its services for their retirement planning.

Further, EPFO has a robust grievance monitoring and redressal system through which member grievances are registered on CPGRAMS or EPFiGMS portals and are resolved in a time-bound manner.

In FY25, a total of 16,01,202 grievances were received in EPFiGMS and 1,74,328 in CPGRAMS, out of which 98% of the grievances were resolved within timelines.

EPFO has advised its members, employers, and other stakeholders to utilise EPFO’s online services only through the EPFO portal and UMANG app.

EPFO services

Recently, the EPFO has been issuing 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 ₹1 lakh and Centralised Pension Payment System (CPPS) for making the pension disbursement process more efficient.

The limit for auto claim settlement was enhanced to ₹1 lakh for advances related to housing, marriage, education and illness, resulting in 2.34 crore claims settled in auto mode in FY 2024-25. The auto claim settlement was introduced in 2020 with a limit of ₹50,000, after which the limit was increased to ₹1,00,000 in 2024.

The transfer claim process was simplified by removing the need for employer approval in most cases, effective from January 15, 2025.

The EPFO has also removed the need for uploading the image of the cheque leaf/attested bank passbook to ensure quicker processing of claims filed online and reduce the number of rejections. Moreover, it has also eliminated the requirement of employer approval for seeding bank account details with UAN (unique account number) from April 2025.