Malaysians prefer savings account to stock investing

Eddy said: No offense, but some if not most Malaysian don't even know the existence of PIDM, don't even realize the regulator only promise to insure 60K of their savings. Geez, safer medium?

Speaking of life insurance with savings elements, the policy holders are not even sensitive about the happenings! AIA Singapore made a clarification in their corporate web site the same day when AIG hitted a major bumper. Why? Coz couple of hundreds of policyholders rushed to AIA building and threathen to terminate their policy (or maybe they really do want to terminate).

Typical Malaysians? "Nothing will happen la" spirit....

Education is still the way to go "la"




MOST Malaysians are cautious when it comes to investing their money, opting for safer mediums such as savings account rather than stocks or other investment vehicles, according to the results of Aviva's Consumers Attitudes to Savings 2008.

Of the 1,000 respondents surveyed, 94 per cent has a savings account, 35 per cent has life insurance with savings element, while the remaining 23 per cent has unit trust.

However, more than half of the respondents indicated that they are ill-prepared to cope with the unexpected, reflecting a worrying trend in Malaysians' financial preparedness.

Some 63 per cent of the people polled realised that saving and investing regularly are key to a comfortable retirement, but only a mere 14 per cent were confident they will have enough funds to retire.



Despite up to 64 per cent expressing concern that they would not have enough money when they retire, the majority saw extending their working life as a better solution to be more financially secure.

To ensure an adequate lifestyle when they really have to retire, 53 per cent of them even acknowledged that they might have to work beyond their retirement date.

"The survey clearly reveals the gap between acknowledging the need for saving versus the action of actually saving. Malaysians choose to continue working full time and part time to fund their much-deserved retirement instead of shifting their mindset to investing their income into other mediums that could potentially provide higher returns," said CIMB Aviva Malaysia marketing director Andi McLennan.

He said continuous education and awareness about ways to benefit from financial growth, while benefiting from the certainty of capital and life protection, are critical for the Malaysian market.

To this end, CIMB Aviva recently launched CIMB Islamic Market Select, a syariah-compliant capital-protected fund that invests in 17 countries from developed and emerging markets around the globe.

Investors also benefit from takaful coverage, which pays surviving nominees a maximum of 125 per cent of their single investment if they pass away before the investment matures.

Investors can gain access to a diversified portfolio of global investments from RM25,000 with their capital intact when the product matures.

When applied to historical data, CIMB Islamic Market Select's dynamic investment allocation strategy gives average annual returns of 16.5 per cent and 23.6 per cent for its three-year and five-year plan which means potentially higher returns than a conventional fixed deposit account.

CIMB Islamic Market Select is available at all CIMB Islamic branches until Friday.