Wednesday 22 October 2008

Protect your savings against inflation


Inflation eating into retirement nest-egg of Malaysians

By Jeeva Arulampalamjeeva@nstp.com.my

FOUR out of 10 Malaysians feel the need to continue working after their mandatory retirement age, driven by the fear that they will not be able to support themselves based on current retirement savings.

A survey by life insurer Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd in August 2008, called the Prudential Retire-Meter 2008, found that 36 per cent of people approaching retirement age were less confident about their retirement from a year ago."

About 81 per cent of these individuals said that inflation had gone up and had an effect on their lifestyles," Prudential Assurance Malaysia chief executive officer Bill Lisle said at a media briefing in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to release the survey findings.

While close to 72 per cent of the respondents said they saved, about 77 per cent of those who saved invest in low-yielding savings vehicles such as fixed deposits and savings accounts."

About 41 per cent said they don't know how much to save to meet their retirement needs and 64 per cent said they did not separate their retirement savings from their other savings," said Lisle.

Lisle said the lack of awareness for retirement savings needed to be addressed since Malaysians should ensure that their retirement plans are inflation and recession proof.

He added that Prudential will continue with its retirement education programme in November, under the "What's your number" campaign that seeks to identify and revise one's estimated retirement savings on an annual basis.

Global research agency Research International was commissioned to conduct the Prudential Retire-Meter 2008 survey which covered key urban centres in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.

A total of 1,024 Malaysians with a monthly household income of RM3,000 and higher were interviewed for the survey.

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http://www.btimes.com.my/Monday/OurPick/20081022004144/Article

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