My friend is not good in investment, so based on his personality, I will not suggest something complicated.

15K of amount seems like not worth to refinance when there are other charges, and his repayment just started less than 3 years ago, I did not see any room to refinance.

EPF Acc 1 to UT involves sales charge, I hope my suggestion can minimize his impact in retirement with EPF, try not to touch other acc.

Yes, it would be first time application for withdrawal, I read the EPF website that there is chance for cheque payment if direct debit with financial institue has failed, but not sure whether can opt in for cheque in the beginning.

If withdrawal from house loan acc after direct debit is possible, guess this is another option. Just wondering anyone done this before.

Friend age @ 38.

but TS mentioned his friend personal loan has a 11% interest rate. If he do a balance transfer /cash on call via credit card, it will be about 4-9% and also got processing/admin fee if not mistaken.

9% and 11% not much difference.

i agreed that 15k is not a big limit. However, depends also on his friend's salary/income. If his friend able to save 2k to 3k per mth, he just need about 5-7.5 mths to clear.

If he can borrow from his relatives/friends/parents, by offering 3-5% for them, and at the same time nego to pay back in installment... this way not just can help his friend reduce/clear in few mths time, but also able to keep his epf intact. This is because his friend do not know about investment, and finds it complicated. Therefore, in this case, is better to keep the money in epf.

15k to some ppl is no big deal, but to some ppl it maybe a big deal... so it depends on various factors that TS's friend only knows.

Just digged more info.

His personal loan repayment tenure is 60 months, just serviced 18 months so far.

The first time I talked to him, I already suggested him to apply credit card, apparently he has no credit card. Reason is that, credit card can be served as emergency due to his wife is delivering soon.

Borrow from people around is not an option, personal complication.

His DSR over net income now is at 73%, and not possible to save 1K per month, so you get the idea of his salary range.

And yes, 9 and 11% has not much difference, one could just borrow money from future self via EPF.

Almost every sentence you wrote raises a red flag.

If you thiink 11% is high, I would imagine him paying from 12% to 18% with a credit card.

And how to get money out of EPF... except maybe using fradulent documents... if there was any easy loophole, it would have been abused by many people ages ago, and already closed. So let's not waste time on non-solutions...

It might be high time to face reality that he could be living beyond his salary and financial status... for example, if can't afford to have medical care in a private facilty, then the option is public hospital.

With the high DSR, talking of making some interest savings by changing from one loan to another can be extraneous. Banks would assess the credit risk of the individual and charges the interest accordingly. So we can't simply say that if we were offered an interest rate of x% from Bank A, your friend could save some money by having a lower interest loan by switching to Bank A.

Anyway, the best time to think about making any interest savings was before and during the application of the loan. After making the decision to take any loan, it is already clear how much we have pay in installments every month, and more important, whether we can cover the installments and other bills and expenses from our salary.

What would throw a spanner into the monthly budget is extraodinary or unexpected expenses in some months, thereby missing some payments and incurring late payment penalties and maybe, due to these late payments, the bank increases the interest rate.

If this is what your friend is facing, not able to make ends meet in some months, then maybe the better option is to approach AKPK for assistance... https://www.akpk.org.my/

(See also the AKPK thread in this forum for further info and queries...)