Good News For EPF Members, Dividend 2023 Expected To Increase!

<p>&nbsp;There is good news for the 16 million members of the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) in this country who will receive dividends for 2023 in the next three months.</p><p><br /></p><p>Based on the performance of EPF investments in these first nine months, most members can look forward to a 2023 dividend of at least 5% this year.</p><p><br /></p><p>This forecast based on the amount of savings investment in the first nine months of 2023 shows development due to the absence of large-scale special withdrawals like the last pandemic period.</p><p><br /></p><p>The EPF's total dividend payout for 2023 shows positive movement and has a chance to surpass its current highest payout of RM56.72 billion in 2021 if the EPF maintains its momentum in this fourth quarter.</p><p><br /></p><p>The total dividend payment for 2023 is expected to exceed RM51.14 billion in 2022, with 5.35% paid to EPF members with conventional savings and 4.75% paid to EPF members with sharia savings respectively.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>According to the recent quarterly financial release in mid-November, the EPF's net investment income for the first nine months of 2023 amounted to RM47.86 billion including RM4.62 billion in foreign exchange gains.</p><p><br /></p><p>The EPF previously went through two challenging years namely 2021 and 2022 where the amount of withdrawal exceeded the amount of contribution which should have shown a net inflow into investment this year.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gross contributions from members were RM73.58 billion in September 2023, compared to the RM63.61 billion recorded in 2022.</p><p><br /></p><p>This helped increase the EPF's investment assets to RM1.092 trillion. About 37.7% of its assets are invested overseas, contributing RM24.66 billion, or 51.5% of its primary investment income.</p><p><br /></p><p>A larger fund size means the EPF needs more money to pay out every 1% dividend to its members.</p>