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The Public Ittikal Sequel Fund (PITSEQ) is a Shariah-compliant capital growth fund that invests in a diversified portfolio of index-linked companies, blue chip stocks and companies with growth prospects listed on the Bursa Securities. The fund may also invest in sukuk such as sovereign sukuk, corporate sukuk and Islamic money market instruments to generate returns. The Fund will focus its investments mainly in the domestic market, capitalising on opportunities arising from Malaysia’s resilient economic growth prospects in the medium-to long-term. Some of the sectors that the Fund may invest in include consumer, industrial, telecommunications and utilities sectors. How about foreign investment? To achieve increased diversification, the Fund may invest up to 30% of its NAV in selected foreign markets. The foreign markets which the fund may invest in include Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Australia, United States of Ameri...

Recently, theStar highlighting a serious issue pertaining to insurance claims - Fraud Claims . It even started with staggering paragraph "Fingers have been chopped off, medical ailments exaggerated and even death faked - all for the purpose of fraudulent insurance claims". Among the issues: RM500 mil in bogus insurance claims are detected each year At least 2 insurance firms have folded as a result of high compensation claims compounded by fraud Insurance firms fight back by setting up special fraud detection units Regarding to this topic, Finance Malaysia would like to shares some views here pertaining to the effects on Malaysians as a whole. And, most importantly, the impact of insurer would definitely pass it to people insured. Why I said so? First, you must understand how insurance companies compute their premiums charged to each clients. If the insurer is financially stronger, it may charged a lower premium for the same amount of coverage on its policies. In other wor...

Effectively today (31st December 2010), the deposit insurance limit will be increased to RM250,000 per depositor per bank, announced Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia (PIDM). Below is the summary of the said announcement:- The new PIDM Bill 2010 has been passed in Parliament. The limit of RM250,000 will protect 99% of retail depositors in full. Under the new Bill, foreign currency depositors will now enjoy deposit insurance protection. The enhanced financial consumer protection package also includes the expansion of PIDM's mandate to include the administration of the Takaful and Insurance Benefits Protection System (TIPS). Licensed insurance companies and registered Takaful operators will automatically become member institutions of PIDM. PIDM was given the powers to intervene in or resolve troubled insurer members and ensure prompt payments to claimants. PIDM is Malaysia Government agency, mandated by Parliament, to protect depositors against the loss of their funds in the...

Referring to previous article "Issuance of New Family Takaful Licenses" on 1st September 2010, many people are skeptical about Great Eastern's (GE) partner -- Koperasi Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (KATM). Given the other 3 new consortium which partner with banks, I am not surprise by those reactions. To recap, the 4 new family takaful licenses: AIA with Alliance Bank Ambank with Friends Provident Fund (UK) ING with Public Bank and Public Islamic Bank GE with KATM KATM , the country's Armed Forces multi-purpose cooperative, is however, no stranger to the insurance industry and it is a substantial shareholder of PacificMas with 16.4% stake. Meanwhile, Pacific Insurance Bhd is a wholly-owed subsidiary of PacificMas. (See picture below to see the GE-KTAM relationship) Why with KATM? KATM has 140,000 members which could be a huge market for GE to tap into. Another reason is that GE has to look into it's agents rice-bowl as well, if GE was to tied up with a local bank. I...