The Association is honoured to have Yang Amat Berhormat Tun Dr. Daim Zainuddin as the Guest of Honor for this event. During Tun’s keynote speech, he has highlighted a few points about Malaysia’s current economy development status, a challenging and changing world where technology is the primary force of change. “We need to Level Up and go beyond mere words instead of patting ourselves on the back with rhetorical posturing devoid of concrete measures and plans.” said Tun Dr. Daim. Importantly, Tun Dr. Daim highlighted that the role of Financial Advisers a.k.a Financial Professionals is crucial in providing appropriate and professional advice to the investors, binding with the recently launched National Strategy for Financial Literacy.
AFA has invited Ms Lim Hsin Ying, the Acting Director of Consumer & Market Conduct Department from Bank Negara Malaysia to talk about Malaysia National Strategy on Financial Literacy, AFA’s newly elected president, Mr Alvin Tan has joined the session after Ms Lim’s speech to further discuss about the importance of Financial Literacy in Malaysia.
Malaysian’s financial literacy ranked 24th out of 30 countries. 1 in 3 Malaysians rate themselves to have low financial knowledge. There are 76% of Malaysians have a budget but 2 in 5 of them find it difficult to stick to the budget set. Only 10% of the Malaysians can survive more than 6 months if they lost their income and 52% of them have difficulty to raise RM1,000 as emergency funds. 41% of the people relied on their EPF savings as the main source of income for retirement and almost 50% of Malaysians are not confident of having an adequate stream of income for retirement.
Financial Advisers (FA) are well positioned to value-add to Financial Education Network’s (FEN) agenda and achievement of National Strategy’s objectives. Their professional advise can help the clients on planning their future and take ownership of their financial goals. FAs are also the information bridge to fill up the gap by improving Malaysians’ understanding on financial and investment concept, products, benefit and identifying pitfalls. By leveraging on technology, FAs can explore partnerships via Fintech and at the same time expanding their market to the underserved.
There are 33 Financial Adviser (FA) firms and 858 Financial Adviser Representative (FAR), 17 Corporate Unit Trust Scheme Advisers (CUTA) firms and 513 CUTA representatives in Malaysia today. The Weighted Premium Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) since 2014 is 24.9%*.
*numbers extracted & analyzed from LIAM Total Volume of New Business Statistics (2014-2018)
The conference ended with a Big Bang and Leveled Up delegates. Look forward for next year’s program!
