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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gross contributions from members were RM73.58 billion in September 2023, compared to the RM63.61 billion recorded in 2022.
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.
A larger fund size means the EPF needs more money to pay out every 1% dividend to its members.
