New Caluclation of EPF Withdrawal - For Malaysian

Over lunch, we talked about investment in Unit Trust, some of my colleagues are not comfortable investing with cash, I then gave them another option - provident fund (EPF in Malaysia).

One of the colleagues told me her EPF account has no more money as she has withdrawn all for the new house. I was surprised that some of us, despite working for many years, still are unclear about the money we have in our provident fund.

What she withdrew, was from EPF Account #2, which consists of 30% of your entire provident fund, another 70% is with EPF Account #1 which you cannot withdraw unless for certain purposes:
#1 Attaining retirement age
#2 Leaving the country
#3 Investment - certain approved investment instruments only
etc, please refer to http://www.kwsp.gov.my for more information.

There is a new method to calculate EPF Account#1 withdrawal for Unit Trust investment - the younger you are, the more amount you can withdraw (i.e. you are required to keep less "Basic Savings" in Account #1). However, the minimum amount you should have in Account #1 is MYR 5000.

Example #1: Wong is 27 years old and he has MYR 50,000 in his EPF Account #1, referring to the table below, he is required to have the "Basic Savings required" of MYR 12,000. Wong is allowed to withdraw 20% of the balance.
(50,000 - 12,000) * 20%
=38,000 * 20%
=7,600

Example #2: Joe is 22 years old and he has MYR 15,000 in this EPF Account #1. His "Basic Savings required" is MYR 5,000. He can therefore withdraw:
(15,000 - 5,000) * 20%
=10,000 * 20%
=2,000

Example #3: Gerald is 35 years old and he has MYR 80,000 in his EPF Account #1. His "Basic Savings required" is MYR 29,000 (much more than Wong as Gerald is older). Therefore Gerald is allowed to withdraw:
(80,000 - 29,000) * 20%
=51,000 * 20%
=10,200


Let me know if you need more information on this, I am more than happy to share what I know with you!