I attended a briefing this morning by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to Members of Parliament on its account restructuring initiative that was announced earlier today. 

I raised three points to the EPF for its consideration. 

First, there must be widespread public awareness by the EPF on its nomination procedure. The EPF nomination is a critical aspect of financial planning that allows contributors to designate individuals who will inherit a contributor’s accumulated funds in the event of the contributor’s demise. Unfortunately, many contributors do not know of this nomination procedure or the importance of nominating the appropriate person to whom they wish their funds to go to upon their demise. 

Second, I raised the proposed EPF annuity schemes that were proposed by EPF in 2000, but never realised. These schemes involved EPF funds being used to purchase single preferred annuity schemes with monthly payments paid to contributors once they reach a certain age. The monthly payments received by contributors would also increase with time. This is similar to a pension scheme. 

Third, the merger of EPF and SOCSO. I believe they are both similar in nature in their fundamental aspects, in particular the collection of monthly contributions. A merger will hence save money and resources, and should be considered.