EPF tightens rules
KUALA LUMPUR: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is reassessing and working on tightening the unit trust fund investment guidelines to further protect contributors' retirement savings.
Its deputy chief executive officer (investment) Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said the EPF was working with the Federation of Investment Managers Malaysia on this.
“We hope the new guidelines will be in place by the second half of this year,” he said after a media briefing on EPF investments and launching of its Corporate Governance Principles and Voting Guidelines yesterday.
Shahril, who said qualified members were allowed to make their own investments using a portion of their EPF savings, however stressed that the EPF wanted to ensure preservation of the savings as well as a real rate of returns from the investments.
He said the two bodies were looking at agreeing to a certain set of minimum criteria before allowing withdrawals from a contributor's accounts for investment.
Currently, there were more than 300 unit trust funds managed by 37 managers approved for the EPF scheme, he added.
In 2009, a total of 427,455 applications amounting to RM3.31bil were approved for investment withdrawals.
EPF qualitative and performance analysis department general manager Badrul Hisham Dahalan said that for the first three months of this year, an average of RM2.18bil was withdrawn out of an average of RM3.35bil of contributions received every month.
Most of the withdrawals went to housing and pensioners, followed by medical, education and unit trust investments, he said.
In another development, the 1Malaysia Retirement Savings Scheme launched on Jan 3 to help the self-employed cope with income inadequacy during retirement has attracted 12,199 members with a total of RM8.14mil in contributions as of April.
EPF public relations general manager Nik Affendi Jaafar said the contributors comprised people of all age groups in various fields such as agriculture, small businesses, fishing, transportation, direct selling and entertainment.
Its deputy chief executive officer (investment) Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said the EPF was working with the Federation of Investment Managers Malaysia on this.
“We hope the new guidelines will be in place by the second half of this year,” he said after a media briefing on EPF investments and launching of its Corporate Governance Principles and Voting Guidelines yesterday.Shahril, who said qualified members were allowed to make their own investments using a portion of their EPF savings, however stressed that the EPF wanted to ensure preservation of the savings as well as a real rate of returns from the investments.
He said the two bodies were looking at agreeing to a certain set of minimum criteria before allowing withdrawals from a contributor's accounts for investment.
Currently, there were more than 300 unit trust funds managed by 37 managers approved for the EPF scheme, he added.
In 2009, a total of 427,455 applications amounting to RM3.31bil were approved for investment withdrawals.
EPF qualitative and performance analysis department general manager Badrul Hisham Dahalan said that for the first three months of this year, an average of RM2.18bil was withdrawn out of an average of RM3.35bil of contributions received every month.
Most of the withdrawals went to housing and pensioners, followed by medical, education and unit trust investments, he said.
In another development, the 1Malaysia Retirement Savings Scheme launched on Jan 3 to help the self-employed cope with income inadequacy during retirement has attracted 12,199 members with a total of RM8.14mil in contributions as of April.
EPF public relations general manager Nik Affendi Jaafar said the contributors comprised people of all age groups in various fields such as agriculture, small businesses, fishing, transportation, direct selling and entertainment.
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