Why your retirement needs multiple buckets

Last month, the pension regulator introduced something called the Multiple Scheme Framework for the National Pension System. The change enables subscribers to hold multiple pension schemes under a single account, each tailored to a different risk profile and life stage. One scheme might be aggressive and equity-heavy for long-term growth, another balanced for medium-term needs and a third conservative for near-term security. The framework recognises something I've been arguing for years: your retirement isn't a single destination but a journey through multiple phases, each requiring its own approach. I recall writing in June 2024 about how the NPS was heading for a crisis because government employees were being defaulted into schemes with just a 15 per cent equity allocation. The maths was unforgiving — over 10 years, equity-heavy plans accumulated roughly 1.5 times what the default fixed-income plans managed. Over the course o

This article was originally published on October 22, 2025.