For former presenter of BFM 89.9's primetime show, "The Morning Run", the highlight of Julian Ng's radio career must have been his interview with the father of index funds, the late John Clifton "Jack" Bogle.
The 2015 interview with the founder and former chairman of the Vanguard Group, is a distant but indelible memory.
"I've admired him for a very long time. My all-time favourite book is Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing," said Ng.
"Then one day, thanks to my producer, Lee Sheung Un, we managed to get Bogle on the show. It was very gracious of Bogle to grant an interview to a radio station that he didn't know about. That reflected his humility and greatness," he added.
During his stint with the radio station from 2013 to 2017, Ng's shows focused on business and finance, where he always questioned the challenges faced by the public concerning wealth creation and preservation. Even after leaving BFM, Ng continues to care about the financial wellbeing of Malaysians.
"There's a lot of debate about the number of Malaysians living below the poverty line. There's a perception that Malaysians in general are facing cost of living pressures. On top of that, there's a kind of societal expectation to buy a car and a property which are expensive relative to their income.
"I don't think that kind of cultural fixation is a good as a digital platforms like, say Grab and amenities like Mass Rapid Transit, give us options for transportation. In a sense, people can get richer if they financially hack their lives. They will feel poor if a big chunk of income had to go to a car or a property instalment. Those things can be bought later when the money comes in.
"I think the government definitely can't wash its hands off a policy of basic income. When people have that, they have enough money to make proper spending and savings decisions.
"At the last count, the RM40 billion revenue from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) before it was scrapped can provide RM10,000 annually to up to four million households. This gives a lot of policy wiggle room.
"We should mandate that by law, the GST revenues should specifically go back to the people instead of spending on other things," he said.
Ng had worked in major financial institutions, namely, J.P. Morgan, CIMB and Public Mutual, in Kuala Lumpur as well as regionally in Singapore and Hong Kong. He used to blog about finance and investing but now mainly via his social media.
He has more than 20 years of experience in the investment banking and fund management industries, having started out as a fund manager before transitioning to stockbroking, and then back to fund management again.
Ng graduated from the Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom (UK) with a Bachelor of Arts in Finance and Accounting. He also has a Master of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Hull in UK.
"At one point of my life, I didn't think fund management which was based on betting on the right stocks was sustainable for the customer and fund manager. There was, and still is, not enough effort spent on how people can have financial freedom. That's why I became disillusioned.
After I quit fund management, BFM came along quite coincidentally," he said. After more than four years with BFM, Ng left to embark on another new journey which was, to set up a robo-advisory platform called Akru, touted as the first Malaysian robo-advisory.
The aim is to help fellow Malaysians manage their money better, prepare for retirement, children's education fund, among others. Now the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Akru, which is licensed by Securities Commission Malaysia, Ng said a robo-advisory platform is a good option for people who are faced with fund-choice paralysis. Akru went live in August 2020. The other co-founder is Tan Chong Liong, who also tends to his other venture capital investments in the fintech space.
"Akru gives an individual the chance to set financial goals by investing into global portfolios of stocks, bonds and funds. This mixture of asset allocation, when done efficiently allows people to optimise returns while taking their preferred risk. Investors can invest in various markets and this offers their investment portfolio more diversification at an affordable rate," he said.
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