A public provident fund, or PPF, is an investment scheme that was introduced in the year 1968 with the objective of putting small savings for a certain period of time and receiving a corpus at the end of the tenure. Many people consider PPF accounts as retirement funds.

It is a relatively low-risk, long-term investment that offers great returns after maturity. The earlier you start investing in the scheme, the better returns you can expect at the end of the maturity period.