NEWS: Solving Malaysia’s retirement conundrum

The Edge TV

Panellists at the recent The Edge Retirement Reimagined Forum 2023 give their views on how to solve Malaysians retirement conundrum, namely low wages and savings rates.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:11 I'm encouraged by the fact that the government has been talking about

00:14 pushing very, very hard on minimum wage and progressive wage, right?

00:19 So to allow the wage in the country to go up to a much more acceptable level.

00:25 But with this, I think a number of key things need to occur.

00:29 Not just that wages must go up, but productivity in the country must also go up

00:33 to facilitate the payment in that form.

00:36 So EPF is quite a strong supporter of that.

00:39 But the second, as I mentioned earlier in my presentation,

00:42 is things that we can control with an EPF.

00:44 And things that we can control with an EPF is actually the evolution of our scheme

00:48 to facilitate the expansion of the scheme to cover the informal sector.

00:53 And bringing them on board is actually very fundamental

00:56 so that we get better social protection umbrella within Malaysia.

01:00 And I'm grateful for the fact that the government is actually providing incentives

01:04 to encourage those people in the informal sector to also do their fair share.

01:08 Because ultimately, as I mentioned at the end,

01:11 I think the key about retirement is the challenge belongs to us.

01:16 We have to take ownership of this challenge and also contribute to it,

01:20 which is part of the issue that EPF actually does

01:22 by stepping up the availability of our people to facilitate that,

01:27 the improvements of our technology to facilitate people to do that,

01:30 the creation of products that make it easier for you to do top-ups,

01:33 so that you can also facilitate building that.

01:37 As an old record player, you should always start saving

01:40 instead of always start investing when you're young.

01:42 But doing that is always a challenge.

01:44 If you look at the disposable income, as we say,

01:48 and Minda Dato Sri also mentioned does now,

01:50 the issue is also on wages, how much one wants to earn,

01:54 and what is the disposable income that they have for them to save for retirement.

02:01 So, having said that, financial literacy is very important.

02:06 Now, financial literacy, you'll hear often people talking about

02:09 financial literacy should start even in primary school,

02:13 even when you're at school.

02:16 It's not just beyond financials,

02:18 it's also being able to understand how you act,

02:22 you behave, and how you treat finances.

02:25 So, saving is one, and also secondly,

02:30 how you manage your lifestyle.

02:32 So, definitely to your question,

02:34 definitely the power of compounding is necessary.

02:39 You've got to save, you've got to start doing something young.

02:43 Now, that's not only on money,

02:45 you also need to look at the other part of the ecosystem.

02:48 You also need to look at buying an insurance when you're young.

02:52 Don't wait until when you're 30 to 40 to start to look at an insurance plan.

02:56 It gets more and more expensive at that time.

02:58 Now, why is that important?

03:00 We talk about healthcare.

03:01 So, do you have enough post-retirement for healthcare?

03:03 So, all this has to start from a really early stage.

03:06 (upbeat music)

03:09 (upbeat music)

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