The retirement fund body EPFO said on Thursday that applicants seeking withdrawal from provident funds online do not have to upload the image of a cancelled cheque and their bank accounts need not be verified by employers.

These measures will significantly streamline the process of claim settlement and reduce grievances related to claim rejections. It will fast-track the claim settlement process for nearly eight crore members and ensure ease of doing business for employers.

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The EPFO has completely dispensed with the requirement of uploading an image of a cheque leaf or attested bank passbook while filing online claims.

As the bank account holder’s name is already verified with the EPF member’s details at the time of bank account seeding with the Universal Account Number (UAN), this additional documentation is no longer necessary.

By removing this requirement, the EPFO is set to immediately benefit around 6 crore members, eliminating claim rejections due to poor-quality/unreadable uploads and reducing associated grievances.

Another key relaxation is the removal of the requirement of employer approval after bank verification.

According to the data shared by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, during FY 2024-25, 1.3 crore members have submitted their requests for seeding their Bank Accounts and the requests after due matching with the respective Bank/NPCI are to be approved by the Employer through DSC/E-Sign.

It is seen that around 36,000 requests for seeding of bank accounts are being raised by the members on a daily basis and the banks take an average of 3 days to complete the verification.

However, after the bank verification, the average time taken by the Employer to approve the process is about 13 days resulting in piling up of workload.

Out of 7.74 crore members who are presently contributing each month, already 4.83 crore members have seeded their Bank Accounts in UAN with 14.95 Lakh approvals are pending at the level of the Employers.

According to the statement, the simplified process will also facilitate those who want to change their already seeded bank account by entering their new bank account number along with the IFSC code duly authenticated through Aadhaar-based OTP.