Ah ok… yeah, the numbers you mentioned do tally with what I believe to be the current ballpark.



Back to the EPF stats... just thinking out loud here, for discussion’s sake.

We know roughly 1% (around 90K) of active members have over RM1 million in their accounts, out of about 9 million active members.

Let’s sanity-check that using Maybank as an example.
It has around 25K staff in Malaysia. Let’s see how many might realistically break the RM1 million mark:

- 1 CEO
- up to 20 C-suite
- Each C-suite can have up to 10 HODs : ~200
- Each HOD might have 1 to 3 top performers : ~200 to 600
- Maybe 40 or so branch managers with high pay

That’s roughly between 500–900 people (and frankly this is most probably an overcount).
(900 x 360K avg annual salary = 324m already)

If these are mostly people in their 40s-50s with long tenures and steady EPF contributions, they’d likely have more than 1m in EPF.

So 700 out of 25,000 = ~2.8%.
EPF’s figure says 1%. Not wildly far off... especially considering Maybank is a large, high-paying corporate with its top earners concentrated in KL (at least vs other industries, SMEs, factories, smaller firms, outside of Klang valley, etc)
If anything, that reinforces how skewed the national average is... maybank is a better paymaster already, and even there, only 3%...


what do you have in mind when it comes to % of EPF millionaires vs the current 1% by epf stats?

yeah... branch managers or generic/junior HoDs (which last time I like to call them "fake" HoDs... cos these only have title, no authority... In many large firms, they can have Heads reporting to Head to real HoD...) are many, but not paid as high.... go to a random CIMB branch and find out the branch head's pay... could be not even near 10K even..


And true, 3% vs 1% is still a big gap. That’s exactly where the mismatch comes in. Comparing Maybank to the overall EPF base isn't really apples to apples.
A big bank like Maybank probably skews higher, and heavier KL concentration. no way the ratio will look worse than the EPF’s national 1%.

(anecdotal: so many old and young kept on claiming banking staffs are well paid... must be better than national average rite? lol)

your make belief sample of "earning at 4k from 25 yrs old at 5% EPF annual dividends for 35 years with 4% annual increments" only reach 1 million in EPF when he reach early 50s. (i had to put 4% as EPF's div to reach your 1.95M at 60 result)

with this assumptions actually mean:
a) uninterrupted work
b) no withdrawal from EPF
c) high starting pay of 4K....

the main challenges would be b and c.

why?
b) if the person took out say 100K rm as depo for a house at age 35, he is delayed in reaching 1m by 2 years.
if the person took out say 300K rm for children education at age 50, he is delayed again by 4 years. (ie 1m at 58 yo)

c) if the person in your example is 50 years old now, when did he started working? back in 2000.
How many persons you know personally were making 4K rm back in 2000?


hence more reasons why the stats is skewed to lower than what we thought it is.
(and prior to like 2018, most people won't have thought of doing self contribution.... )

more "awareness" because of more information...
too much credit and liquidity floating around...
opportunities of all types... influencer, talk cock, gig econ like driving, delivery... onlyfans etc

And when all else fails, they still have the ultimate cheat code... FAMA!

There's also the Wealth Bottleneck generation: 4 grandparents and 2 parents funnel wealth into 1 or 2 lucky descendants

Wow. Ur monthly income is very good. But your EPF is very low.
Are you a biz owner? Mine sharing the type of biz?

Looks like you are enjoying your life 😉

The old saying goes... Easiest ways to get rich: win the lottery, be born rich, or marry rich.
Modern update: sugar baby counts too.



everybody else.... hardwork whether traditional or gig econ...

This.... cannot beat the americans... must list in nasdaq... used to be just put in dot com... now, must have AI letters....

Net worth, by definition, should include your primary residence and any valuable items like a new car, luxury watch, or other assets with real resale value.

And then come along bankers and financial advisors... they are only interested in the liquid stuff they can actually "help" you. So they asked for networth excluding "primary residence,” and conveniently they also won’t ask you to include cars, jewelry, or personal items.

For me, my networth calc basically include only liquid assets... assets I am actually willing to sell if needed. So naturally, that excludes the house, cars, jewelry, iphones, etc. Those are lifestyle items, not part of my deployable financial base.

the article clarified that it is usd millionaires that the author is referring to.

even so, 85K does seem to be a bit too low a count...

I think should be more than number of EPF myr millionaires... simply cos most people have more elsewhere vs everything in EPF

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Dec 7 2025, 01:01 AM

usually one only disregard the house that one currently stays in.

The other house is considered an investment and the net equity can be used to count as one's savings/investment.... (that's how the wealth planners usually do it)

ops.. sorry to hear that.
I err'ed by making the usual assumption that holding a property usually means already made money/positive equity...

then technically your case is one of the good examples where EPF is a great investment for malaysians.

he mentioned at the time... implying it was quite some time ago...

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Dec 8 2025, 10:16 PM

wah... 12.5m worth is like 22kg worth of gold? you keep them in physical form at home or at some vault? or etf/digital form?

i can imagine your bathtub to be made partially of gold... haha...

Really? How many usd millions do you have?

Positive thinking mode on…

If you just keep the status quo and leave everything as is, the returns in USD terms are already up almost 10%... without doing anything at all.

So basically, whatever returns you get in ringgit terms just got an extra boost when viewed in USD.

Free tailwind…