PUBLIC ISLAMIC BOND FUND 0.43%

Another high increment today, above is today's... (prices of local funds are updated at around 7.30pm.)

From the performance chart, it has increased nearly 1% (0.95%) in this one week. Phenomenal.

As mentioned previously, EPF has the clout to make the fund houses/companies accept a lower service charge at 3% if you are using money from your EPF account 1, well EPF has just walked a step further.

It has becomes an agent itself and you can purchase ut funds via its online service, and the service charge is capped at 0.5%.

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EPF launches online platform for unit trust investment

Monday, 19 Aug 2019 2:20 PM MYT
KUALA LUMPUR: The Employees Provident Fund has launched its i-Invest online platform, which allows members to make informed investments in unit trust funds offered by EPF-approved fund management institutions (FMI).

According to a statement, the platform allows members to monitor their investment funds through their i-Akaun and look up information on cost of investment, historical performance, as well as required statutory information.

Via i-Invest, members may transfer from their EPF Account 1 up to 30% of the amount in excess of basic savings to be invested in the qualified funds, the statement said.

Members can also use i-Invest to open an account with any FMI to invest in unit trust funds.

The sales charge for purchases via i-Invest is capped at 0.5%, which compares to 3% for offline purchases and traditional transactions through agents.

"We are very excited about introducing i-Invest, as this digitally powered facility empowers our members to take control of their investments and make transactions at nearly zero cost," said EPF CEO Tunku Alizakri Alias.

Members aged 55 and above can utilise i-Invest using Akaun 55 or Akaun Emas through i-Akaun as a mode of withdrawal, subject to maintaining a minimum of RM1,000 in their account.

The EPF enforces strict guidelines for FMIs to safeguard members' interests and has approved 389 funds from various investment categories under the EPF Members investment Scheme in 2019/20.


Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...chSFBLPAkzBE.99

It is not only a concern to traditional ut agents but also to online agents when a big guy like epf is stepping into the field.

Please note if the member is above 55, he can use his account 55 or account emas to make purchases.

(Unlike account 1, these accounts are not subject to the excess over the basic savings rule.)

The next step could be becoming a full-fledged agent and allowing members below 55 to make purchases by tweeting their online system slightly to accept online payments.

Lol... well spotted.

Tweaking...

As stated in the article, through epf's i-akaun and i-invest, the full list of funds under the epf-mis scheme is available to epf members and the service charge is capped at 0.5%.

It is not tied to any one particular fund house.

As it is currently, i-invest has links to the member's epf account 1 or 55 and/or emas, and the purchases can be done without the aid of any agents (whether he/she is representing one or multiple fund houses) and without manual forms.

By 'full-fledged agent', it was meant to say that epf could, in near future, also accept cash purchases from its members... linking their i-invest to the members' bank accounts too.

Has anyone done any purchases throught EPF i-akaun?

I have registered into EPF i-Akaun today.

You can get the temporary user id from a epf kiosk... located in banks like UOB or Bank Rakyat instead of going to a epf branch office.

Make sure epf has your correct mobile number, as the temporary password will be sms to you. (The sms is quite slow, I have to wait about 2-3 minutes before receiving it.)

Then you need to activate it using the temporary id and password... at this webpage
https://secure.kwsp.gov.my/employer/employe...untactivation?0

After activation, where you change the id and password and fill in a phrase word... you login into i-akaun
https://secure.kwsp.gov.my/member/member/login

You would be asked to comfirm your mobile number by requesting a tac to be send to you.

Inside i-akuan, there are several tabs... one of them is "Investment". It will bring you to another site.

I have only explore it a bit... there is a fund selector, group by fund houses... and yes, the service charge is 0.5%.

Did not go all the way through in completing the "buy"...

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I would presume that if say a new fund is purchased from Fund House A, you will have an account with Fund House A.

If Fund House A has online service as like Public Mutual Online, you would then register into the online service to keep track of the fund and to switch to another fund or sell it. Switching and redemption fees will be applied as normal to that fund house.

If several fund houses are selected and the purchases were done and completed, you will have individual accounts with each fund house.

In Public Mutual, it would be safe to assume that any purchases done by epf i-akaun, if the fund is an existing fund you already have, a new account number will be created for that fund. Hence, same fund, 2 separate accounts to indicate who is the agent.

Have just checked the MGQP tab, and surpirisingly, the points are higher than previously.

The increased in gold points tallys with the reinvested distribution (in RM amounts) since 01/08/2019.

(You can do an advance search to filter out the "DR" transactions.)

Yes, the bond funds were falling since 17/9, and dropped sharply last Thursday, 19/9, with PIINFBF dropping -0.49%. and reversing its 0.43% rise on 15/8.

It seems to be back on the uptrend yesterday, with Public Sukuk +0.05%. The infrastructure bond funds would have similar increases when their nav price is known later this afternoon.

I can't relate the rise and fall to any singular market event, other then market demand in general which causes the price movements.

(BTW the above performance chart is from Public Mutual Online... within the "Fund Analytics" tab. You can select several funds for comparison.)

Were you referring to the differences between purchases done from account 1 and account 55/emas?

(Account 1 is for those yet to reach age 55. Upon age 55, account 1 and account 2 will be combined into account 55.)

Yes, if before age 55, any withdrawals will be reverted back to EPF and back into account 1. Am not sure whether you have the option to cash out the income distributions, as the default option is "re-invest". If there is option to cash out the income distribution, it will revert back to EPF too.

If the purchase of the fund is from account 55, then it is unlike account 1 and the purchased fund will not be marked as "EPF scheme".

For those age 55 and above, they can buy mutual funds directly via EPF's i-akaun instead of making cash withdrawals from EPF and then making the purchases via agents.

I can safely assume these purchases will be treated as cash purchases, and any withdrawals and 'cash-out' income distribution will be paid in cheques or into the fund holder's bank account; since when the fund holder turns 55, his "EPF scheme" funds will change and marked as "cash scheme".

The total returns is (106% x 106% x 106%) - 1 = 0.191.

Or 19.1%.

a + b + c = 19.1%

The returns in each year, a b c, can be anything... it is a common investment mistake to think that a b c is the average or almost near the average.

Hence, the timing and when the purchase was done can influence the returns.

And since the annualized return in the past 3 years doesn't mean it would repeat itself every 3 years, the total returns in the next 3 years can be anything... maybe a negative figure too.

This is how to calculate the commission or service charge...

Service charge is 5.5%, purchase amount rm100:
100 / (100% + 5.5%)
100 / 1.055 = 94.79

Purchase amount = 94.79
Service charge = 94.79 x 5.5% = 5.21

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If the investment is only over 1 year, then it would be difficult to gain back the service charge plus a decent profit. This is why each purchase has to be held over a long term of many years, preferably more than 10 years, to amortise the service charge and also to have compounded growth.

Is it a guarantee that the long term investment will be better than fd or epf? No.

But no risk, no gains.

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For a new investor making his very 1st purchase, there is a cooling off period, if not mistaken, of 6 days to cancel the purchase.

Switching is not allowed.

Itseemed that those funds starting with an "e-..." must be purchased with fresh money. You can't switch from another fund into them.

That was another old post, and unfortunately it is a bit confusing with the numbers and maths to read.

Maths is logical... it would be much easier to understand using a step-by-step rationality in plain English without using any numbers.

Btw the service charge in purchases via/from EPF used to be 3.5%. And you can now make purchases using EPF's own online service, and the service charge is only 0.5%.

Portfolio about 95% in bond funds... been slowly switching out of equity funds till last October.

The growth was pretty flat from Sept to Nov. and about 0.5% up in Dec. The growth continues in January… 1.5%.

So, with Shanghai going down 7-8% today, no sweat… don’t have to react to market noise… might continue to switch a bit, about 2-3%, back into equities every 3 months.

Some info taken from this month's Public Mutual magazine.

1-yr returns (in %) as at 31/12/2019 for some selected funds at the top:

PUBLIC LIFESTYLE & TECHNOLOGY FUND 32.91%
PUBLIC ISLAMIC GLOBAL EQUITY FUND 24.86%
PB ISLAMIC SMALLCAP FUND 23.85%
PUBLIC GLOBAL SELECT FUND 21.30%
PB CHINA PACIFIC EQUITY FUND 20.93%
PB ISLAMIC DYNAMIC ALLOCATION FUND 20.73%
PUBLIC CHINA SELECT FUND 20.36%
PB GLOBAL EQUITY FUND 20.04%
PUBLIC ASIA ITTIKAL FUND 19.94%
PUBLIC GREATER CHINA FUND 19.91%
PUBLIC WORLDWIDE EQUITY FUND18.72%
PUBLIC ISLAMIC ASIA LEADERS EQUITY FUND 18.40%
PB EURO PACIFIC EQUITY FUND 17.40%

Last year was a good year for equities. The funds' performance were accordingly to their respective benchmarks.

EPF dividends update:

Annual Dividends:
2008 4.50%
2009 5.65%
2010 5.80%
2011 6.00%
2012 6.15%
2013 6.35%
2014 6.75%
2015 6.40%
2016 5.70%
2017 6.90%
2018 6.15%
2019 5.45%

10-yrs Annualised Returns:
2008 5.18%
2009 5.06%
2010 5.04%
2011 5.14%
2012 5.33%
2013 5.51%
2014 5.71%
2015 5.85%
2016 5.91%
2017 6.02%
2018 6.18%
2019 6.16%

Though last year was a good year for equities funds, the returns were recovering from their negative returns in 2018... below are the funds (out of many funds) that match or better EPF's total returns over the past 10 years...

PUBLIC ISLAMIC DIVIDEND FUND
PUBLIC SMALLCAP FUND (closed to new investments)
PUBLIC ISLAMIC OPPORTUNITIES FUND (closed to new investments)
PUBLIC ISLAMIC SELECT TREASURES FUND
PUBLIC ASIA ITTIKAL FUND
PUBLIC ISLAMIC ASIA DIVIDEND FUND
PUBLIC SOUTH-EAST ASIA SELECT FUND
PB ASEAN DIVIDEND SEQUEL FUND
PUBLIC GLOBAL SELECT FUND
PUBLIC FAR-EAST PROPERTY & RESORTS FUND
PB ASIA REAL ESTATE INCOME FUND

(Some other funds were launched less than 10 years ago, and don't have 10-yrs data.)

In the previous year (2019), bond funds were doing better, from 5.81% to 7.91%.
(PB AIMAN SUKUK FUND 9% is excluded as it is closed to new investments.)

Bond funds are still giving good returns over last month and this month... about 2.5% YTD.

I'm holding 4 bond funds:
Public Sukuk and PB Sukuk
Public Islamic Infrastructure and PB Infrastructure.

All giving similar returns... the infrastructure bond funds slightly better.

You should try purchasing online from EPF i-invest. No need agent and lower service charge.

Yes, all the yearly fees and operational cost of the fund are included into the daily price.

The returns are the difference of its value in each calendar year. This is the fund's returns.

For the investor, we need to take into account the initial service charge paid.

The sales charge or service charge is only one time.

If you hold the fund several years, you 'amortized' it over several years.

Any one would do, as it is for verification.

Within PMO, you will see all the funds and their account numbers, and the total value of your portfolio of funds.

PMO has been upgraded since 1 or 2 years ago.

It now shows the allocation of the portfolio in a pie chart, showing the proportions of equity, bond, and money-market/income funds.

The Fund Analytics tab has more info on all funds. In its fund performance chart, several funds can be selected for comparison.


If not mistaken, purchases via PMO have slightly lower service charge... very, very slightly... 5.25% for equity funds and 0.75% for bond funds.

The alternate method to get lower service charge is using EPF i-invest, if you have excess money in account 1... the service charge is 0.5% for equity funds.