Private Retirement Scheme (PRS)

By now most of us already heard about the new Private Retirement Scheme announced by PM which should available beginning from Sept or October 2012. There are still some details being iron out, and that may cause a delay in implementation.

With so many schemes in the country now, it can be confusing. Here I have summarized a comparison between PRS and three other collective investment schemes for retirement, common to us. They are EPF, EPF Investment Scheme and direct investment into Unit Trust Funds.

The aim of this comparison to help us see differences in PRS. And for that purpose, these selections seem suitable.

	Direct Investment in Unit Trust	PRS Scheme (New!)	EPF Investment Scheme	EPF
Participation	Voluntary	Voluntary	Voluntary	Mandatory
Capital	Cash	Cash	EPF Withdrawal From Account 1	Mandatory Salary Deduction
Return	Potential high return and loss	Potential high return and loss	Potential high return and loss	Return below personal inflation rate
Time Horizon	Mid to long term	Long term	Mid to long term	Long term
Withdrawal	Any time	Account A (70%) at age 55 Account B (30%) at any time	Any time, but revert to EPF Account 1 while below age 55	Account 1 (70%) at age 55 Account 2 (30%) at any time but for limited use.
Penalties	Non	8% penalty for withdrawal before age 55 from Account B	Non	Non
Fund Choices	Variety of choices	Very limited choices	Limited Choices	Not Applicable
Historic Performance Report	Available	Not available (new sets of funds)	Available	Available
Service Charge	Yes	Not Finalized	Yes	No
Annual Management Fee	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Additional Government Incentives	No	RM3000 Tax Relief for up to 10 years	No	RM6000 Tax Relief

-

I believe the above are the immediate comparisons an investor may look for. I will try to post other related detail in the future. News about PRS is widely available in the mainstream media, but for alternative viewpoint, here is a site you could visit and read the comments left by their visitors - click here.

Here some more information if you are interested ...

Main parties involve in the PRS scheme:-

• Security Commission (SC) - Provide regulation for the scheme.
• Private Pension Administer (PPA) - Maintaining transaction record for all PRS funds and consolidate reports for investors from all PRS Providers.
• PRS Provider - Unit Trust Funds management companies approved to provide unit trust funds for the PRS scheme and with whom the investors will deal with.

Currently there are 8 approved PRS Providers, they are:-

• From bank base
• AmInvestment Management Sdn Bhd
• CIMB-Principal Asset Management Bhd
• Public Mutual Bhd
• RHB Investment Management Sdn Bhd
• From insurance base
• American International Assurance Bhd
• ING Funds Bhd
• Manulife Unit Trust Bhd
• From investment base
• Hwang Investment Management Bhd

Thank you :-)