The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has announced that workers in the informal sectors who have been voluntarily contributing to i-Saraan will receive a matching incentive of 15% of the voluntary contribution. The program is aimed at those under the age of 60 working in informal sectors such as those who are self-employed and gig economy workers with no fixed income.
According to the statement issued by its Corporate Affairs Department, the government’s maximum matching incentive limit for the i-Saraan programme has been raised from RM300 to RM500 per year. The government will also continue to give incentives to every i-Saraan participant who contributes, subject to a maximum lifetime incentive of RM5,000. For the first half of 2023, government incentives amounting to RM28mil have been credited to 211,361 members under the i-Saraan programme.
In addition to i-Saraan, the EPF has also announced a 50% matching incentive by the government on every RM1 voluntary contribution by housewives under the age of 55 who contributed to the i-Suri programme. This would also apply to housewives who are registered under the e-Kasih database, subjected to a maximum incentive limit of RM300 per year. “The government will also continue to provide incentives to every i-Suri participant who contributes subject to a maximum lifetime incentive of RM3,000. For the year 2023, government incentives amounting to RM19mil have been credited to 42,532 members under the i-Suri programme,” EPF said.
The EPF encourages members to leverage the increased matching incentives for i-Saraan and i-Suri programmes so they are able to further build their retirement savings, ensuring a more secure and prosperous future.
Beneficiaries under i-Saraan and i-Suri programs can continue their saving for the future to elevate their living standards. Furthermore, the initiatives will also aid more members to benefit from this government incentive.
Besides the i-Saraan and i-Suri programs, the EPF has implemented a strategic separation of its Simpanan Konvensional and Simpanan Shariah portfolios to allow Shariah-compliant investment. The move aims to optimize long-term returns for each portfolio with independent strategic asset allocation. The EPF has also enhanced its i-Invest platform to enable transactions for private mandate portfolios.
The EPF’s investment assets involving both portfolios amounted to RM1,092.32bil and the organization is making efforts to ensure that assets under both Simpanan Shariah and Simpanan Konvensional are well diversified across asset classes, markets, countries, and currencies to ensure sustainable returns.
Moreover, the EPF has included Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) based investment products in the list of approved investments to support Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) products and to mainstream EPF’s sustainability agenda. Private mandate portfolios are investment instruments that can be customised to align closely with a member’s specific objectives, needs, and risk tolerance, managed professionally by authorised fund management institutions (FMIs).
