Depositors in the Employees’ Provident Fund may continue to get an interest of 8.65 percent on their deposits in the fiscal year ending March 2018, according to a report by the Financial Express.

In an interview to the newspaper, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who’s also the head of Central Board of Trustees (CBT), said that he hoped the 8.65 percent interest rate could be maintained for the second year on the trot. The CBT is the highest decision-making body of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).

"It is very difficult to speak on the interest rate for the current fiscal. But I hope the 8.65 percent rate could be maintained," Dattatreya said. Despite being at its lowest in four years, the 8.65 percent return on savings makes EPF one of the most lucrative fixed-income investment options for depositors.

Considering that the EPFO’s income on investment has been falling for some time now, the Finance Ministry suggested lowering the interest rate on deposits in EPF. It has already lowered interest rate on debt instruments like public provident fund, national savings certificates, Kisan Vikas Patra, and post office time deposits.

The finance ministry had initially suggested lowering interest rate on EPF by 10 basis points in FY16 itself. However, the CBT decided to continue paying higher interest after a lot of protests by trade unions across the country.

As a result, the EPFO found itself with a surplus of only Rs 409 crore at the end of FY16, after paying interest at 8.8 percent to depositors, as against Rs 1,640 crore at the end of the previous fiscal. In FY17, too, despite paying a lower interest rate of 8.65 percent, the retirement fund body’s surplus at the end of the year is seen falling to around Rs 200 crore.

In a separate development, the Labour Ministry has also amended the social security schemes run by the EPFO in order to enable it to make all payments to members electronically. “The scheme has been completely amended and the provision of making payments through money order or cheques has been omitted from the schemes,” an official was quoted as saying. “Thus all payments would be made through electronic mode.”

The EPFO had already been making majority of it payments electronically before the amendment of the scheme. However, a small minority of its field offices were using other modes of payment like cheque and money order. These provisions have now been omitted from the scheme, thereby making it mandatory for all field offices to pay electronically.