Retiring into poverty

Dealing with the staggering percentage of EPF members with insufficient retirement funds is critical.

SOME time back, a white-collar foreign worker told me he wished he had worked in Malaysia earlier. The reason for his frank opinion is his retirement savings. He calculated that he would have had a tidy nest egg that would have been enough for him to retire with despite having worked in Malaysia for far less a time than most Malaysians would have.

He was surprised that his contribution to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) was a sizeable percentage from both him and his employer, and that amount was not capped.