Nearly 30 per cent of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members have withdrawn their retirement savings from Account 1 after they were allowed to, in order to soften the blow of the pandemic which hit the country sometime around March last year.
As reported by Sinar, Chief Executive Officer, Tunku Alizakri Alias, actually revealed that this is happening despite the success of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) giving a relatively high dividend to its members even though the country was facing various challenges in 2020. He said,
“We find that many members’ savings have decreased. We believe about 30 percent of them have withdrawn almost all of their retirement money in Account 1. They only have to leave RM100 in the account as a condition. The EPF is a bit worried about this, we will continue to do more activities as well as awareness campaigns on the importance of savings for old age.”
Meanwhile, the EPF also informed that a total of RM18.1 billion in savings has been withdrawn by 5.16 million members through the i-Lestari withdrawal scheme launched earlier. Apart from that, the EPF also allows members to reduce their compulsory contributions from 11 per cent to 7 per cent effective April 2020 until December 2020. It is to help ease the burden of those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Did you withdraw from your EPF Account 1? Is it OK to do so or are you putting yourself in danger by not having any savings to prepare yourselves for the future?
Also read: Study: It Will Take 7 Years For The Pandemic To Be Truly Over Based on Vaccine Rollout
