KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 4.1 million or 31.6 per cent of the total number of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members under the age of 55 have chosen to have the initial amount in the Flexible Account with a total transfer of RM14.5 billion, according to the Finance Ministry.
Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan said a total of RM6.6 billion in savings had been transferred to the Retirement Account.
"As of Nov 27, a total of four million or 30.5 per cent of all EPF members had made withdrawals through the Flexible Account with a total withdrawal of RM11.6 billion.
"The total balance of Flexible Account savings is as much as RM7.4 billion as of November 2024," he said during a question and answer session at Dewan Negara today to a question from Senator Datuk Bobbey Ah Fang Suan who wanted to know the number of EPF contributors who have transferred contributions from Account 1 to Account 3 (Flexible Account) and the number of contributors and contributions that have been withdrawn from Account 3 so far.
Amir Hamzah also said that taking into account the Flexible Account withdrawal trend for this year, the expected withdrawal for the coming years is around RM5 billion-RM7 billion per year.
He said this amount is minimal when compared to the growth in the size of the EPF's investment fund which has increased by RM100 billion-RM120 billion per year from the generation of investment income as well as the inflow of net contributions received from members.
"This expected withdrawal is also much lower than the allocation of cash balance based on Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) in the range of two to six per cent of the EPF's total investment assets, equivalent to at least RM25 billion," he said.
In other developments, he said the EPF is ready to see if there is a need to refer again to the terms for converting conventional savings to shariah savings.
"We will see if there is an opportunity to (revisit) the terms, but this requires more in-depth attention... this is still under consideration by the EPF," he was replying to an additional question from Datuk A Kesavadas Nair who wanted to know if members could change shariah savings back to conventional savings. — BERNAMA