Only 3% Malaysian Can Afford To Retire

The Covid-related withdrawals over the past two years have had a massive impact on the savings of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contributors, as currently, only three per cent of contributors can afford their retirement.

Covid-related withdrawals, namely i-Sinar, i-Lestari and i-Citra, resulted in many members below age 55 having critically low EPF savings. Even with Covid-19, 80 per cent of Malaysian men and 90 per cent of Malaysian women will reach age 60, while one out of three men and two out of three women will reach age 80. We now estimate that only three per cent of Malaysians can afford to retire.

By the end of this year, 54 per cent of EPF members aged 54 would have less than RM50,000 in their savings account, noting that a majority of those who withdrew their entire EPF savings upon reaching age 55 would use it up within two to three years.

Those who had withdrawn from their EPF savings would now need to work an extra four to six years just to cover the amount that they withdrew over the past two years. Since it is unlikely that the retirement age will be raised, they would not have enough for their retirement.

Meritocracy The Foundation Of Singapore

Developing highly capable leaders anchored on core values like meritocracy and incorruptibility is a focal area of leadership development in Singapore, said Minister-in-charge of the Public Service Chan Chun Sing on Friday (Oct 29). Speaking at the 8th Singapore-China forum on leadership, Mr Chan, who is also Education Minister, shared the three areas of focus for leadership development in Singapore. Developing highly capable leaders anchored on core values is one of them, he noted.

Meritocracy & Incorruptibility - “Just like our Chinese counterpart, we strongly believe that values (and) their role in shaping governance cannot be overstated. Selecting and developing not just the most capable, but also the most committed individuals for leadership, remains our topmost priority.”

Singapore’s experience with managing the COVID-19 pandemic shows that “it is not just about the technical accuracy of our responses”, but whether the people trust the Government to “do what it takes to protect the public good” even in the midst of uncertainty, said the Education Minister.

“Therefore, leaders must be anchored on core values, such as meritocracy and incorruptibility, and always putting the public interest above self. In an uncertain world, values become even more important, because leadership effectiveness depends on trust. These values do not change. These are the values we look out for when selecting our leaders and leadership team, and we continue to reinforce them along our leadership journey.

Diversity & Collective Leadership - Fostering greater diversity in Singapore’s “leadership collective” is also needed to build resilience. The collective strength of our team matters more in an uncertain world. We need to develop resilient leadership teams with a good mix of skills, traits, competencies, experiences and personal networks.

In Singapore’s public service, leaders are exposed to “different domains”, including policy, operations, mobilisation and communications. Beyond rotating them to different Government agencies, these individuals are also exposed to the private and people sectors to “gain knowledge and build networks”, said Mr Chan.

Run The Extra Mile - He added that leaders should move beyond “doing for our people” to “doing with our people”, and to “do more and do better together” while managing heightened expectations. We consult the public and solicit views, allowing the Government to be more responsive to citizen needs. This also allows us to benefit from alternative ideas and suggestions as we co-create and co-deliver services with businesses and the community,” said Mr Chan.

“As the role of the government becomes more complex, we will need to align and tap on the wider collective across public, people, private sectors, to develop more sustainable and more holistic policies and approaches.”

Mr Chan is also Singapore’s new co-chairman of the forum. Executive vice minister of the Central Organisation Department of the Communist Party of China Jiang Xinzhi co-chaired the forum with him.

The forum, first hosted by China in 2009, is a platform for political leaders and senior officials of Singapore and China to “discuss and exchange experiences on common challenges related to leadership development”, said the Public Service Division in a statement.

NTUC Launched In Indonesia

NTUC Income, an insurance cooperative in Singapore, made its first overseas foray into three Southeast Asian markets namely Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia. The company had formed partnerships with PT Central Asia Financial (JAGADIRI) in Indonesia, Post and Telecommunication Joint Stock Insurance Corporation (PTI) in Vietnam and VSure Tech Sdn. Bhd (VSure) in Malaysia.

These strategic alliances are built on Income’s Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) model that enables the company to bring digital-first insurance business models to partners overseas.
This enhances their speed-to-market, and equip them with the right capabilities and tools to capture new customer segments and revenue streams.

As part of Income’s strategic partnerships with JAGADIRI, PTI and VSure, these companies will be the first in Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia to launch Droplet respectively across four cities including Greater Jakarta, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as Kuala Lumpur.

Droplet is a micro-insurance product that is designed to address price surges on ride-hailing platforms during rainy days.

Improve Humanity Increase Productivity

The push for heightened productivity began, the unrelenting demands to get more out of people are taking a toll; a mental and physical toll on the humans doing the work, toss in the impact of a global pandemic and the effect is a burned out, demotivated, detached, overworked workforce. And people are reaching a breaking point as evidenced by the “Great Resignation,” where a reported 11.5 million people quit their jobs in April, May, and June of this year and record levels of attrition. It is time to look at a different way to drive productivity. It’s time for humanity.

To bring more humanity into your workplace, take steps to become more aware of your own actions and the impact they create on others. With this insight, you can shift how you interact with others and create a positive humanity-centered culture, one where people feel like humans, not resources. Here’s how—we have created five practices to bring more humanity to your workplace.

Creating Safety. The most important aspect of working with people is to create an environment that feels safe, physically and psychologically. When people feel safe, there is a sense of belonging to the group. This sense of belonging promotes fully expressed individuals, aware of whom they are and what they have to contribute. When people feel safe, they will do better work. Period.

Working Together. The secret to working together is to realize it’s not all about you—it’s about everyone working together to achieve a common goal. This may require a perspective shift. It means being clear on what outcomes you want, open to how you can achieve them, and having faith in the power of co-creating to get there. Engagement is all about them, be sure every team member feels heard and knows their contributions are valued.

Claiming Values. Claiming values means knowing what you stand for, your non-negotiables. When you know what is important to you, you act on those values. This creates intentionality and offers clarity to those you work with. It helps create alignment. As a leader, you can help people discover their values—why they do what they do—for the company and for themselves. When people feel connected to what they are doing, they are more productive and engaged.

Owning Your Impact. Your impact is how people experience you. When you take responsibility for your impact, it creates personal accountability; your words and your actions align. You deliver what is needed to drive results, and you do it in a manner consistent with your character. Owning your impact is a practice of being responsible for what you create—both with your work and your workplace culture.

Daring Not To Know. This is the practice of surrender. It paves the way for deeper engagement and loyalty from others. It takes strength and confidence to appreciate things will be better when more ideas are included, when fuller representation is present and diverse perspectives are heard. As a leader, when you show that you are human, vulnerable, and don’t have all the answers, you open the door for others to step up. That’s the magic! Daring not to know makes the entire organization stronger. Lead the way by saying, “I don’t have the answer for that, what do you think?”

These five practices help you create a culture where you get the best—not just the most—out of your people. They help you increase your self-awareness, and from this place you can stand in choice about how you are behaving with the people you work with, and what type of work culture you are creating. Productivity is all about people. As a leader, when you have the courage to change, and help your organization be more human, you make humanity work better everywhere.

Manulife Financial Planner Convicted

A former financial planner at Manulife has been issued six-year prohibition orders after being convicted of a series of offences including forgery and cheating, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said. 

Under the prohibition orders, which took effect on Wednesday, Stedtson Koh Kesheng is banned from providing financial advisory services, taking part in the management or acting as director of any financial advisory firm. He is also not allowed to be a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory company or from doing business in the insurance sector.

Koh worked as a representative of Manulife (Singapore) from September 2013 to February 2015 when he duped seven people into signing contracts for new Manulife insurance policies.
He told customers that their premiums paid for existing policies with another insurer could be transferred to new policies issued by Manulife.

Subsequently, Koh forged documents to deceive the customers into believing that the cash value of their existing insurance policies had been successfully transferred to their new Manulife policies. Customers’ previous policies had lapsed because they stopped paying premiums on their previous policies believing that they only needed to pay premiums to Manulife. As a result, the premiums the customers paid for the previous policies became irrecoverable", as the policies were terminated before their maturity dates. 

Koh pleaded guilty on Feb 15 to six charges - two counts of forgery and four counts of cheating. He was sentenced to 24 weeks' imprisonment in total.

Critical Illness Fraud Claim

The anti-graft body smashes a syndicate that cheated an insurance company out of HK$26 million in critical illness insurance. Four core members of the syndicate aged between 39 and 59 years were arrested - a former insurance agent, a policyholder, an intermediary and a cancer patient.

The case, which happened between 2017 and last year, involved four insurance policies, two of which were purchased by Hongkongers while the other two were purchased by mainlanders. The highest compensation in one of the policies was HK$9 million.

Four hospitals - two local and two in the mainland - and three local medical institutions were also involved in the case.

The ICAC said the insurance agent first purchased a high-compensation critical illness insurance policy with an annual premium of about HK$280,000 before asking a cancer patient, who is of similar age and appearance to the policyholder, to conduct a body check at a medical center or hospital.

The lymphoma proof obtained was then used to cheat the insurance company, for which the policyholder could receive HK$9 million in compensation.

The ICAC discovered that the insurance agent received a HK$2 million bribe, while the policyholder, intermediary and the cancer patient were offered rewards ranging from tens of thousands to several million dollars. The insurance agent also received a HK$2.5 million bribe.

In another operation, the ICAC arrested 22 people - a former regional director of an insurance company, three branch managers and 18 former insurance agents - for defrauding two insurance companies of about HK$51 million in commissions. The four seniors had hired the 18 people aged between 25 to 30 with no work experience and told them that they didn't have to sell any insurance products.

Further investigation showed that the four former senior employees falsely told the two insurance companies that the 18 agents sold as many as 480 insurance products and got HK$5.1 million in commission fees between 2018 and last year.

For the first nine months of this year, ICAC received 32 corruption complaints related to the insurance industry, compared to only 14 cases in the first nine month last year.

Ping An Insurance - Premium & Profit Falls

China largest insurer by market value - Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd - posted a 31.2% fall in third-quarter net profit on Wednesday as its premium income shrank on a weak economy and profit was dented by losses on investment assets. Net profit fell to 23.6 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) in the three-months ending September 30, compared with 34.4 billion in the year-earlier period. It marks the company's worst quarterly profit fall since the first quarter of 2020.

Ping An's insurance business and investment returns have been hit by weakness in China's economy, which posted its slowest growth in a year in the third quarter as power shortages and property sector worries took a toll. The foundation for economic recovery requires further consolidation against the backdrop of a complicated international environment, sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks in China, and the impact of natural disasters including floods. Household consumption shrank quarter-on-quarter, affecting the long-term protection business of Ping An.

Ping An's premium income from life insurance in the first nine months declined 3.5% year-on-year to 364.5 billion yuan, while property and casualty insurance income fell 9.2% to 199.3 billion yuan.

PROPERTY EXPOSURE - Investors' confidence in Ping An has been shaken over the past year on growing concerns about its investments in a highly indebted property sector which faces a liquidity crunch amid a crackdown by Beijing on unbridled borrowings. The insurer reported a first-half earnings fall for a second consecutive year, as it wrote off a 20.8 billion yuan loss from investments in beleaguered developer China Fortune Land Development Co Ltd.

Ping An said it made no major provisions against China Fortune in the third quarter, but cautioned that "capital market volatility and increasing impairment provisions on investment assets weighed on the yields on company's investment portfolio of insurance funds."

Chinese regulators are probing Ping An's investment in the property market, and ordered it to stop selling alternative investment products, which are typically tied to the property market, Reuters reported. Some analysts caution that the total property exposure of Ping An is much higher than revealed and still underestimated by the market, which will impose further credit risks to the group.

While others expect Ping An's performance to bottom out in the fourth quarter, as the central bank and other regulators hinted some measured financing support for unfinished property projects of troubled developers.