Aboi's Updates For Malaysian PRS Funds for 1H'2016

If you need to know what is PRS I suggest reading my earlier post here: Private Retirement Schemes in Malaysia. I decided to put money into PRS in Nov 2014 due to several reasons [1] income tax RM 3000 rebate until 2021 [2] youth incentive 30 years & below of RM500 [3] long term forced investment for retirement because if you withdraw earlier it is taxed.

What do you need?
[1] Provider’s joint account opening form cum transaction form. Initial subscription only for each provider. PRS Forms (not the full list of all fund houses)
[2] A copy of Malaysian NRIC or passport for foreigners. The front and back of the Malaysian NRIC must be on a single page.
[3] Additional RM10 for the opening of a PPA account for first-time PRS contributors.
**The above is via Fundsupermart platform (might be different if purchase directly). Fundsupermart offers 0% sales charge which is great.

Performance review
I am currently invested in PRS for funds with exposure to Asia exc Japan because that is what I am looking for so I wouldn't be touching a lot on other categories; just a brief run down of them. The data below is obtained from Morningstar PRS Screener.

I have a stake in CIMB Principal PRS Plus Equity Asia Pacific ex Japan Equity Fund (+16.09%, 1.3 years holding period) and will continue to contribute. Thanks largely to the RM500 PRS youth incentive scheme, this year's losses due to China's selling rout in January is greatly minimized. With a risk factor of 9/10 it is therefore expected that volatility this huge -5% at certain times is not a big surprise. I might also be looking into splinting half my PRS contribution into AmPrs Asia Pacific REITs (launched in Nov 2014) as it has exposure to Asia Pacific region.

Conclusion:
Investing in PRS is a long term game as such I on hold to my strategy that is it in Asia Pacific with it's young population and rising middle class that will fuel the world economy for decades to come.