News & Announcement | Malaysia Financial Blogger | Financial Freedom Ideas

Impact of the Increase in OPR

Bank Negara Malaysia raised the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) by 25 basis points to 3% since last Friday. Following this, banks will increase the Base Lending Rate (BLR) sooner. So, for those who have variable loans especially housing loan will have to pay more in their monthly installment.

bank negara malaysiaOPR

The reason for increasing the OPR is to cover the local inflationary pressures. The current inflation rate is about 2.9% and it is expected to continue to rise in latter part of the year. However, Bank Negara did a great job as they take pre-emptive action to push for economic growth before addressing the inflation issue.

May 10th, 2011 | 1 Comment

RON 97 Fuel Price Increased Again !

If you are using RON 97 petrol, then you need to pay extra 20 cents to RM 2.70 per litre effective midnight of April 1, 2011. Luckily, the price of RON 95 is remaining the same at RM 1.90 per litre else more Malaysia citizens will suffer.

Petrol-Price-In-Malaysia

Last year, our government had announced that the price of RON 97 will be based on the international oil market without subsidiary. Based on current oil prices, we know that the global oil price was increased to US$114 per barrel. I still remember the previous highest RON97 price is at RM 2.70 in year 2008, when global oil prices hit a record high of US$121 per barrel.

April 2nd, 2011 | 1 Comment

What Do You Think About 6% Government Service Tax?

Effective from Jan 1, 2011, our government increases the Goods and Service Tax on all taxable services to 6% in order to generate extra tax revenue for our country development.

GST-Goods-Service-Tax

With this move, it will impact a great number of service industry. You may probably feel the effect of increasing service tax, you need to pay more money when visiting the fast food restaurants, or when you pay your telephone bills. However, this rate is not applicable to our credit cards where the service tax is charged at RM50 yearly on principal cards and RM25 for supplementary cards.

March 14th, 2011 | 5 Comments

Traffic Summons Deadline Extended

As we known, the date for the settlement of outstanding traffic summons had been extended to March 10. From now onwards, summonses must be paid in full or else we are not allowed to renew our road tax, driving license and not even allowed to buy or sell cars.

traffic summons

Based on the record, there are still remaining outstanding summonses of 17.3 million still not being paid. This is the reason why our government still giving second chance to our citizen as there’re about 1.7 millions motorist who could be potentially blacklisted. So, that’s not a good achievement in the sense of the authorities’ capability.

March 3rd, 2011 | 1 Comment

Do You Feel Satisfied with EPF Dividend Rate for 2010?

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Recently, EPF declares the dividend payout of 5.8% for the year 2010. Compare to year 2009(5.65%), it is an increase of 0.15% in dividend payout. Thus, the returns for the year 2010 is in fact slightly better than 2009. The increase still acceptable as year 2010 economy was strong in the first and second quarter and economy crisis turn down a bit start from the mid of the year.

EPFdividendhistory

I believe that most of the account holder will feel very happy with 5.8% EPF dividend payout for the year of 2010, as it is higher than parking your money in fixed deposit. But, do you know what’s the average dividend rate of EPF is over the period of year before retirement? It is better you do the math to calculate your future EPF funding projection so that it will be easy for you to decide how you can utilize your EPF account smartly.

Do You Feel Satisfied with EPF Dividend Rate for 2010?

February 23rd, 2011 | 5 Comments

EPF Employee Contribution Rate Revert to 11%, Good or Bad?

Before that, our government allow employee to reduce their EPF contribution from 11% to 8%. However, start from this month, the EPF employee contribution rate will back to normal which is 11% while their employer’s contribution rate still remains at 12% of your monthly wages. Thus, you can now enjoy total of 23% EPF contribution of your monthly wages.

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Our government can make such decision due to the recovery from bad economy which you can see from different sector such as banking, employment and production.

I will strongly agree with the move as you can have huge benefits from the big picture. The reduction of EPF contribution rate will increase the employee’s disposable income and this will increase their spending as well. In the other words, they are spending their future money instead. Subsequently, they will less money for retirement. Not only that, you will also need to pay more income tax as you have higher income.

Why Our Government Increase the Rate from 8% to 11%?

January 2nd, 2011 | 1 Comment

Police Summons Discount Offer up to 50%

Is there amongst of us who has never been issued a traffic summons before? I’m very sure that almost 90% of Malaysian has been issued before. In order to reduce offenders backlog, our government has announced to offer special discount rate for traffic summons which paid within certain time frame. So, it’s the best time for all of the traffic offenders to settle all their police summons.

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Starting from 1st December 2010, you can pay all your summons which issued on or before 30th November 2010 at a discounted rate. If your summons settled within 15 days then you will be offered a 50% discount from your original compound. If your summons settled after 15 days but not later than 30 days then you will be offered a 30% discount from your original compound. But, you will be blacklisted if your summons is not settled within 30 days.

December 6th, 2010 | 2 Comments