UPDATES: Comparison of historical dividends between Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020, Amanah Saham Malaysia and Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia

Updates (as of 8 Nov, 2014): ASW2020 and AS1M FY 2014 dividend of 6.6 cents per unit.

Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW 2020), Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) and Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS1M) are three of the most popular unit trusts funds from Perbadanan Nasional Berhad that are available for non-bumiputra. All these unit trust funds are fixed price funds at the price of RM 1.00. This means that you buy and sell at RM 1.00 irregardless of share market fluctuations.

ASW 2020 which was launched in 1996 is an equity income fund that is benchmarked against 3-months KLIBOR rate. ASM which was launched in year 2000 is an equity income fund that is benchmarked against 3-months KLIBOR rate. AS1M which was launched in year 2009 is an equity income fund that is benchmarked against average rate of 5-years government MGS bond.

AIA A-Plus Med Schedule of Benefits & Premium Table

AIA A-Plus Med is the replacement medical insurance plan from AIA Malaysia, superceeding the previous medical insurance, AIA Excelcare Plus and Medicare Plus. AIA A-Plus Med o ffers benefits that matches the offerings from other insurance companies' medical insurance plans.

In a nutshell, AIA A-Plus Med insurance plan offers:

1. Coverage until 100 years old.
2. Increasing annual limit (for Room & Board 150 and above): Initial annual limit will be increased by 5% every 2 years starting from the third policy year, for 20 policy years, provided that there is no claims or claims not exceeding RM5,000 over the last 2 policy years.
3. No lifetime limit.
4. Zero co-insurance and deductibles.
5. Hassle-free hospital admission card.
6. Options to include/children (up to max 4 children) into a single medical insurance plan.

AmPRS Funds Explained

AmInvest is the fifth private retirement scheme (PRS) provider in Malaysia that launched their PRS funds on 2 April, 2013. AmInvest PRS scheme will have 3 core funds, namely AmPRS Growth, AmPRS Moderate and AmPRS Conservative. In this article, I will elaborate on the conventional PRS funds.

AmPRS Growth Fund is targeting those investors below age of 40 years old or have high risk profile. This fund will mainly invest in combination of equities, REITs, fixed income and liquid assets. Up to a maximum 70% of the fund can be invested in equities in the Asia Pacific markets. Out of this 70% equities portion, a maximum 20% can be invested in REITS. A minimum 30% of the fund will be invested in fixed income assets while a minimum 1% will be retained in liquid assets.

AmPRS Moderate Fund is targeting those investors between the age of 40 - 50 years old or have moderate risk profile. This fund will mainly invest in combination of equities, REITs, fixed income and liquid assets. Up to a maximum 60% of the fund can be invested in equities in the Asia Pacific markets. Out of this 70% equities portion, a maximum 20% can be invested in REITS. A minimum 40% of the fund will be invested in fixed income assets while a minimum 1% will be retained in liquid assets.


AmPRS Conservative Fund is a fixed income fund with a small portion of equity investment, is meant for those over 50 years old or have low risk profile. Uo to 80% of the fund will be invested in fixed income, of which 20% of the NAV will be in money markets. Up to 20% of the remaining portion of the fund can be invested in local equities. A minimum 1% of the fund will be retained in liquid assets.

The summary of AmPRS funds information is available below:

Note: If you need to open the spreadsheet in another tab, click here.

In my opinion, there are better PRS choices out there as compared to AmPRS. The disadvantages of AmPRS funds can be listed as below:

1. High sales charge and switching fees of 3%, just as CIMB- Principal PRS.
2. AmInvest is not very well known for their equity funds performance, as compared to their bond funds.

To know more information about AmPRS offerings, please visit the official site. To understand the difference between PRS and RSP, please visit this link.

Impact of new BNM Rulings on Household Indebtness

Due to the rising household debts as compared to GDP in Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) recently introduced new measures to further tighthen credit lending especially on housing and personal loans as follow:

 

1. Maximum tenure of 10 years for financing extended for personal use.
2. Maximum tenure of 35 years for financing granted for the purchase of residential and non-residential properties.
3. Prohibition on the offering of pre-approved personal financing products.

Now that we have these new measures, so what does it means to the people on the street? This is my opinion on the impact of new BNM rulings to the rakyat:

•  Housing loans will be less afforable to the property investors/buyers, especially for the younger investors/buyers. With the shorten loan period, monthly installment is expected to rise and affect debt-to-income ratio, which is probably one of the factor financial institutions take into considerations.
• Hopefully, the new measure can cool down/reduce the property market speculations, especially those developments without DIBS. Personally, i still wonder why Malaysian government hasnt banned DIBS as done by Singapore government few years back. In my opinion, DIBS is one of the factor that push property prices to beyond the reach for most of the rakyat.
• Reduced availability of personal loans. A lot of youngsters and people in the lower income brackets are taking personal loans to cover for daily expenses as well as paying off credit card debts. With the introduction of such new measures are going to be painful to those people affected, but i do agree that such measure is needed to instill better financial management for the youngsters.

In summary, the measures are good for long term financial stability of the country. No doubt that it's going to be painful for those affected, but it's necessary to bring down household debts. I guess people needs to get the basic fact right: you must spend less than what you earn!

Making Sense of Money is back online!

Dear readers,

My blog, Making Sense of Money, was blocked by Google and flagged as scam blog by their bots for the past 6 months. If you were my faithful readers, you will know that my blog is for sharing of financial topics for the good of general audience.

Few days ago, I received good news from Blogger that my blog has been reinstated. So, there you go, my blog is fully back online! I will try to update as much information on my blog articles as possible for missing out much of the financial news for the past 6 months.

Do drop by from time to time for the latest financial news and knowledge! Cheers!

Portfolio Rebalancing Strategy

Apart from asset allocation decision, financial experts around the world are advocating periodic portfolio rebalancing to bring your investments portfolio that has deviated from the target asset allocation back in line. In short, portfolio rebalancing is the action of selling of high performing investments to buy lower performing investments, with the condition that the fundamentals of lower performing investments are still intact. While this logic deviates from normal human psycology, what portfolio rebalancing is doing is basically to sell high and buy low. With periodic portfolio adjustments, we can take advantage of the system to take profit devoid of our emotions in making investment decisions.

Public Mutual PRS Funds Explained

Public Mutual is the fourth private retirement scheme (PRS) provider in Malaysia that launched their PRS funds on 26 November, 2012. Public Mutual will have two PRS schemes, conventional and Syariah, of which each PRS scheme will have 3 core funds, namely Public Mutual PRS Growth / Public Mutual PRS Islamic Growth, Public Mutual PRS Moderate / Public Mutual PRS Islamic Moderate and Public Mutual PRS Conservative / Public Mutual PRS Islamic Conservative funds.  In this article, I will focus on the conventional PRS funds.

Public Mutual PRS Growth Fund is targeting those investors below age of 40 years old or have high risk profile. This fund will mainly invest in combination of index/dividend/growth stocks. 20% of the fund's NAV can be invested in warrants, while up to 40% of the fund's NAV can be invested in existing Public Mutual unit trust funds. 20% of the equity portion of the fund can be invested in Asia Pacific markets.

Manulife PRS Funds Explained

Manulife Asset Management Services Berhad is the third private retirement scheme (PRS) provider in Malaysia that recently launched their PRS funds. As a beginning, Manulife will have 3 core funds, namely Manulife PRS Growth, Manulife PRS Moderate and Manulife PRS Conservative funds. Manulife PRS Growth Fund is targeting those investors below age of 40 years old or have high risk profile, while for Manulife PRS Moderate Fund is a balanced fund targeting those investors between the age of 40 - 50 years old or have moderate risk profile. Manulife PRS Conservative Fund is a fixed income fund with a small portion of equity investment, is meant for those over 50 years old or have low risk profile. Manulife PRS Growth and Manulife PRS Moderate funds will have up to 30% of equity allocation for investments in Asia Pacific markets.

CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Funds Explained

CIMB-Principal is the second panel member that launch Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) to the public in Malaysia, after Hwang PRS Solutions.  CIMB-Principal PRS Plus comprehensive offerings comprise of five funds based on investors risk appetite and investment styles (do it for me vs do it yourself).

At launch time, three core funds, namely CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Growth Fund, CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Moderate Fund and CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Conservative Fund will be available to those investors who prefer do it for me investment style. This means that CIMB-Principal will manage the fund allocations depending on the preset investment objective and asset allocation. The other two non-core funds, CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Equity Fund and CIMB-Principal PRS Plus Asia Pacific ex Japan Equity will be available to investors who are comfortable with higher equity exposure and would like to manage their PRS portfolio in a more active manner.

Scam Alert: iPanelOnline

Updates: I finally received a feedback from iPanelOnline, saying that my account was deleted due to inactivity. Question is I've been participating in many surveys and have accumulated many points. What is considered inactivity? So, guys, please be aware that one day, your account might be deleted as well without warning.

I was a member of iPanelOnline survey web site for over a year and have introduced many friends and acquaintances to this survey site to earn some side income. Things went smoothly for over a year and I managed to withdraw some money from iPanelOnline to my PayPal account twice.

However, for the past 3 months, I could not login to my account anymore. When i tried to request for lost password, I was notified that my account do not exist. I even tried to contact the customer service of the web site, but so far I've got no response. My account was never restored. This, to me, is a scam. So far, this is the first web site that let me down....scammers!

So, for those who have subscribed to iPanelOnline, do remember to withdraw your money regularly. Even if something screw up later on, you will not regret leaving your cash accumulated with iPanelOnline and they're gone the next day.

HwangIM PRS Funds Explained

HwangIM is the first panel member that launch Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) to the public in Malaysia. Hwang PRS Solutions, comprising four funds based on contributors' risk appetite and needs, are targeting guided annual return of between five per cent and 11 per cent. At launch time, three core funds, namely Hwang PRS Growth Fund, Hwang PRS Moderate Fund and Hwang PRS Conservative Fund. The fourth non-core fund, Hwang AIIMAN PRS Syariah Growth Fund will be launched at a later date.

Hwang PRS Growth Fund is targeting those investors below age of 40 years old or have high risk profile, while for Hwang PRS Moderate Fund is a balanced fund targeting those investors between the age of 40 - 50 years old or have moderate risk profile. Hwang PRS Conservative Fund is a fixed income fund with a small portion of equity investment, is meant for those over 50 years old or have low risk profile. Hwang AIIMAN PRS Syariah Growth Fund is a feeder fund for existing HwangIM fund, Hwang AIIMAN Syariah Growth Fund.

Private Retirement Scheme vs Regular Savings Plan

Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) was soft launched by the Prime Minister in July as an  additional financial tool to supplement our sole retirement funds, EPF. After the initial hoo-hah, the hype about PRS has cooled down with not much information on the details of the PRS available to the public. However, you can refer to this booklet for some basic info and Q & A on PRS.

Since we've got this simple booklet to explain everything about PRS, I'm not going to dwelve in details about PRS. What I'm interested in discussing about is the comparison between PRS and Regular Savings Plan (RSP). Typically for a PRS investment, we are talking about regular top-ups to the retirement funds with your spare cash, be it on monthly/quarterly/one-off basis. This is basically the same principle as RSP.

Now, as an investor, if you already have active RSP with one of the fund houses or via online unit trust distributors, such as Fundsupermart, you might be wondering, should i cancel my RSP and invest in PRS? As a quick recap, let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of investing in PRS:

Hwang PRS Launch

HWANG Investment Management Bhd (Hwang IM) has become the first of the eight appointed Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) providers to roll out its PRS products and services.

Hwang PRS Solutions, comprising four funds based on contributors' risk appetite and needs, are targeting guided annual return of between five per cent and 11 per cent.

Even though there is no minimum dividend policy, unlike the minimum 2.5 per cent that the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) offers and the funds are not capital-guaranteed nor protected, Hwang IM is confident that like other funds it manages, the PRS funds would perform just as good.

"The sound principles and good safeguarding policies put in place by the Securities Commission to some extent provides for a viable framework for this scheme to succeed. But like most things in life, nothing is guaranteed," said Hwang IM chief executive officer Teng Chee Wai.

Fundsupermart Referral Program

Fundsupermart Malaysia (FSM) has launched a referral program for their existing account holders to encourage the account holders to introduce new clients to FSM. This is how FSM referral program works:

1. FSM account holder submit the name, phone and email address of potential client to FSM.
2. FSM will send an email to potential client with an activation link to open an account.
3. Potential client fills in account opening form and activate online FSM account.

It's as easy as that. Of course, you cant run away from submitting from some supporting documents when submitting the account opening form. So you might ask, what's the catch for all this trouble?

AS 1Malaysia Declares 6.6 Cents Dividend for FY 2012

Amanah Saham Malaysia Berhad has declared a dividend of 6.6 cents per unit for Amanah Saham 1Malaysia (AS1M) for the financial year 2012. The income distribution will be reinvested in the form of new units and will automatically be credited into the unitholders' accounts on October 1.


As a comparison, last year's dividend declared was 6.5 cents.

For comparison of historical dividend payout between ASW 2020, ASM and AS1M, please refer to this article.

Source: Bernama

ASW 2020 Declares 6.6 Cents Dividend for FY 2012

Amanah Saham Malaysia Berhad has declared a dividend of 6.6 cents per unit for Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW 2020) for the current financial year ending August 31. The income distribution will be automatically credited into the unitholders' accounts on September 1. Investors will be getting their payment vouchers and annual reports by mid October.


As a comparison, last year's dividend declared was 6.5 cents.

Source: Bernama

iHerb Rewards Surprise!

Few days back, I got a nice surprise from iHerb, a USD 100 reward, from an online contest in their web site, which i'm not even aware of. My initial suspicion is that this could be another email spam asking the public to click on some links in the email etc.

Here's the email i got from iHerb:

Tokio Marine Life Health Care Supreme Schedule of Benefits & Premium Table

Health Care Supreme is a yearly guaranteed renewable medical and health insurance rider that can be attached to individual life and investment-linked policies from Tokio Marine Life. This medical plan is renewable up to age of 80.

The unique selling points of this medical card are as follow:

1. Insured can opt to increase room & board by 50% with a loading of 7.5%. For example, if you purchased a medical card with room & board rate of 200, you can enhance your medical card by adding the upgrade room & board option to increase room & board limit to 300 at the cost of 7.5% more premium.
2. Insured can opt to increase annual limit by 50% and lifetime limit by 100% with a loading of 5%. For example, if you purchased a medical card with room & board rate of 200, you are entitled to annual and lifetime limit of 100,000 and 400,000 respectively. You can enhance your medical card by adding the upgrade annual & lifetime limit option to increase annual & lifetime limit to 150,000 and 1,500,000 at the cost of 5% more premium.
3. Up to 15% discounts on premium for no claims discount from third year renewal onwards.

Comparison of Medical Card Panel Hospital

Out of so many medical cards available in the market today, how do you select the most suitable medical plan for yourself? Apart from analyzing the coverage of the medical plans as listed in my Medical Card Comparison article, there are also many other aspects have to be checked carefully before you sign on the dot.

Based on excellent comment from Wi1s0n in my article mentioned above, one of the points that we have to consider is the list of panel hospitals that is covered by the medical plans. It is worth to note that even though a hospital is covered by a particular medical plan, it does not mean that the specialist that you are seeking medical advice from are approved by the insurance company. Therefore, it is advisable for you to get hold of the panel hospital list as well as the approved specialist list from your insurance agent.

Comparison of Family Personal Accident

Personal accident (PA) insurance policy is one of the critical component of insurance planning for a person, but it is often neglected and overshadowed by the more popular insurance in the market such as hospitalization and surgical medical plans. With PA insurance, you can protect yourself or your loved ones financially in the event of accident that results in hospitalization, disability or death.

There are many types of PA insurance in the market, such as classic PA, travel PA, driver PA, family PA, and etc. In this article, we are focusing on family PA plan, i.e. personal accident insurance that will include both insurance owner and spouse as well as all the children in the household within a single policy.

In Malaysia, most of the PA plans are sold by general insurers. This article intends to compare some of the main features of the family PA plans offered by some of the leading general insurance companies in Malaysia, such as Allianz, Lonpac, Chartis, Tokio Marine, as well as life insurance companies like AIA and ING. For the purpose of this article, we will assume that the insurance owner will purchase a family PA plan with the accidental death payout of RM100,000.

Here's what he will get from the family PA plans mentioned above:

Note: To open the spreadsheet in another tab, click this link.

From the comparison table above, the boxes highlighted in Yellow are the advantages of the features of each family PA plan if compared to the same feature of competitor family PA plan.

As you can see, every family PA plan has similar features with differentiating amount of coverage. It is important to note that there is no such thing as the "best" family PA in the market, but rather the "most suitable" family PA plan for you. When i mean the "most suitable" family PA plan, i mean that the coverage offered is within your comfortable zone and within your budget.

For me, I tend to focus on factors such as payout amount for accidental death, accidental TPD, medical reimbursement, accident hospital income, weekly benefit, prostheses, corrective dental/cosmetic surgery, and renewal bonus. The remaining features are nice to have, and in fact add to the cost of insurance.

In my opinion, family PA plans from AIA, Allianz and Chartis Insurance stand out from the competitors by packaging their plans to focus on core factos as mentioned above. However, the premium for these family PA plan are well above the average market rate. If you are looking for a more balanced family PA plan with reasonable premium, notable mention are Lonpac FlexiCare, Kurnia Perfect 10 Plus, AXA SmartCare Prime, and QBE FlexiCare.

To get the details about each family PA plan, please follow the links below:

• Allianz Shield
• AXA SmartCare Prime
• Berjaya Sompo Family PA
• Chartis Essential PA
• ING Family PA
• Kurnia Perfect 10 Plus
• Lonpac Family Protector
• Lonpac FlexiCare
• MPIB Family Accident Protector
• OAC Family Protector
• QBE FlexiCare
• Tokio Marine Family PA Partner

Disclaimer: The information published is for your reference only. Please refer to your insurance agent for the most up to date information.