Retirement Planning Seminar by FPAM & Hannah Yeoh

[rajiv]

The Office of YB Hannah Yeoh and the Financial Planning Association of Malaysia (FPAM) is organizing a personal finance monthly series "Money Basics" to educate the public on how to better manage their lives in these trying times. Given the rising cost of living and aspiration to enjoy better quality of life, Malaysians are well advised to learn and plan their finances adequately. This will prevent one from getting into a debt spiral. Financial planning services should be sought while you are still in good financial health and not just when you are in financial difficulties. Emergencies such as hospitalization, illness and loss of income source are events beyond our control and being better planned financially to face them will help to reduce the mental stress.

The programme will consist of a talk every month ranging from retirement planning, mortgage, medical health care, investment planning, children's education, debt consolidation etc. At the end of each talk, participants will have a Q & A with the speaker.

Details
October Title : Retirement Planning
Date : 18 October, 2008 (Saturday)
Time : 9.00am -12.30pm
Language : English
Venue : Auditorium, Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya (MPSJ)
Persiaran Perpaduan USJ 5, 47610 Subang Jaya, Selangor
As participants are limited to 80 only, registration is on a first-come-first-served basis.
Pre-registration is required for all participants.

Programme
8.30 – 9.00 am Registration
9.00 – 9.05 am Welcome Remarks by YB Hannah Yeoh
9.05 – 10.30 am Retirement Planning: Beyond the Numbers
10.30 – 11.00 am Coffee Break
11.00 – 12.00 am Planning For Your Golden Years
12.00 – 12.30 pm Question & Answer Session
12.30 pm Close

Please pass the word around. Thank you.


Best Regards,
Rajiv Rishyakaran
Special Asst to YB Hannah Yeoh,
Pejabat ADUN Subang Jaya
Tel: 03-56312768, 016-2380045
Fax: 03-56312757
Email: rajiv@dapsj.com

[rajiv]

Brief CV of KP Bose Dasan

KP Bose Dasan is a tax consultant and a certified financial planner licensed as an Investment Adviser (financial planning) representative with Standard Financial Planner Sdn Bhd. He is literally the first financial planning guru in Malaysia having taught the initial batches of ChFC students at The Malaysian Insurance Institute. He currently lectures for the CFP program at PNB Investment Institute and the Applied Financial Planning module at the Faculty of Business and Accounting, University Malaya. He has authored numerous articles on tax and financial planning that have appeared in Personal Money, Smart Investor and in The Edge. He is an executive committee member of the Malaysian Association of Chartered Financial Consultants and an elected Board Member of the Financial Planning Association of Malaysia. He firmly believes in financial planning education and wants it practiced across the length and breadth of Malaysia. He holds an economics degree from University Malaya and an MBA from Cranfield University, England.

KP Bose specialty is tax planning for general wealth accumulation and retirement planning using salient tax ideas. He is also a counselor in personal financial management and behavioral finance. His thorough analysis of your personal financial circumstances and goals realization will be an education in itself. He believes in intelligent finance in a very confusing and exploitative world.

[pywong]

Brief CV of KP Bose Dasan He believes in intelligent finance in a very confusing and exploitative world.

Has he read the Rat Race?

[pywong]

Retirement Planning Seminar Report
18 Oct 2008, Tindak Malaysia, by pywong

The Financial Planning Association of Malaysia in co-operation with Hannah Yeoh’s office organised a Retirement Planning Seminar at the MPSJ Auditorium. This is part of a personal finance monthly series “Money Basics” to educate the public on money matters.

This as an excellent idea and Hannah is to be congratulated for initiating such lectures. Reading the flyer, it is apparent that this will be quite popular with the middle and upper middle class.

Entering the auditorium was a first time experience for me although I have been paying house assessment for almost 30 years in Subang Jaya. It was a good and comfortable set-up with a backlight full-screen projector - quite impressive. Now I know where my money has gone to. What I liked were the strategic signs prominently posted on the walls directing us to the auditorium.

There were about 20 attendees, mostly retirees, retiree-wannabes, a young couple and a jobless guy (me).

The talk started off with an introduction by Hannah Yeoh (photo 01 of http://picasaweb.google.com/pywong07...Seminar181008#) at 9:00am followed by the seminar speaker, Mr. KP Bose. Mr. Bose is a tax consultant, certified financial planner and licensed as an Investment Adviser. He also lectures at the Malaysian Insurance Institute, PNB Investment Institute and University of Malaya and contributes regularly to Financial magazines. Refer to the attached file,

He started off by stressing the importance of education in one’s life and that we should devote time to reading a lot, especially the classics. He then presented a chart showing that Retirement Planning involves personal growth, financial, social and physical development (picture 03). This was followed by a description of the real life concerns of the typical retiree (picture 05). Next was a chart (picture 06) showing the increasing life span of the typical Malaysian and that this had to be factored in the planning of the retiree.

He explained that there are four groups of retirees today – pensioners, private sector employers with EPF, business people and politicians/athletes/entertainers (picture 07). The typical retiree with EPF exhaust the fund within 3 years. Usually, they have to survive on 30% of their last-drawn salary whereas a government pensioner can is entitled to 50% of the last-drawn salary.

He presented a bleak picture of the current scenario for retirees (picture 0 where they don’t have enough money to support them till the end, they may have to continue working to support themselves, many don’t have business succession planning, and they may end up having to depend on their children or on charity. Picture 09 was an explanation on the method of assessing one’s retirement’s needs. This must take into account the inflation rate which historically varied from 2 to 4%

Then a flow chart was shown describing the Wealth Accumulation Process (picture 10). This was followed by a description of the quality of assets and liabilities (picture 11). An Investment Pyramid (picture 12) was shown with assets ranging from CDs, Life Insurance, Savings a/c, Bonds, annuities, personal property at the base, rising to Real Estate, Mutual Funds, managed a/c, blue chip stocks at the second level, with commodities, speculative stocks, raw land on the third level and finally stamps, arts, rare coins, options and precious stones at the apex. He was quite negative about mutual funds because of the fees that is taken by the mutual fund operator.

Picture 13 was a typical Robert Kiyosaki chart explaining why the rich get richer. And in the last chart (picture 14) he explained the necessity of taking into consideration the prime rate to decide which asset class to invest in and the timing.

In his strategy for investment, the speaker emphasized the advantages of investing in investment property where one can leverage on the bank loans that is readily available for mortgages and that the payment can be covered by the tenant. He gave examples of old couples who retired with 4 properties to their names that was throwing passive income to support them.

Mr. Bose ended by stressing the importance of having a Certified Financial Planner to help in planning our retirement as they will sit down to assess what are the risk profile, the investment personality and needs of the client.

Overall, the talk was quite entertaining with a fair bit of interaction with the audience. He spoke confidently in a clear voice and tried his best to answer the questions posed to him. It can be considered that this talk is useful to introduce the audience to the existence of financial planners and the need to plan early for retirement.

Weaknesses:
This talk is quite academic, more suited for students of financial planning. There are no real life examples that the audience can use in investment.

His emphasis on real estate investment assumes that property always increase in price, which the current crisis in the US has demonstrated to be a fallacy. He has not highlighted the dangers of falling prices which can deleverage the mortgage and wipe out the investment. This can be quite dangerous for the ignorant person who jumps into the property market blindly thinking that it is the ticket to his retirement nirvana.

In discussing mutual funds, he should explain that we need to invest through mutual funds if we wish to invest in Brazil, Russia, India, China or the East European or South American countries as they are not directly accessible to the average investor.

There is a blind spot in the whole talk as it is based on paper currency investment only. He has not identified the dangers of a currency crash, which in the present crisis is a very real possibility. He should also talk about the Rat Race and how it is used to exploit the people. That will help them to open their eyes to the areas where they are vulnerable and to look for ways to defend themselves.

Conclusion:
Hannah has done well in starting this “money” series. The above talk should be used merely as a catalyst to encourage the public to educate themselves in the area of financial literacy in order to plan their retirement.

In looking for a Financial Planner, it is wise to take note of one very important piece of advice by Robert Kiyosaki – look for a person who is already financially independent and who does not depend on your fees to sustain him. Having achieved financial independence, he is qualified to show you how, if you wish to achieve it, especially in the areas of investment. And to help you plan for retirement.

[pywong]

Retirement Planning Seminar Report
18 Oct 2008, Tindak Malaysia, by pywong

The Financial Planning Association of Malaysia in co-operation with Hannah Yeoh’s office organised a Retirement Planning Seminar at the MPSJ Auditorium. This is part of a personal finance monthly series “Money Basics” to educate the public on money matters.

Weaknesses:
This talk is quite academic, more suited for students of financial planning. There are no real life examples that the audience can use in investment.

His emphasis on real estate investment assumes that property always increase in price, which the current crisis in the US has demonstrated to be a fallacy. He has not highlighted the dangers of falling prices which can deleverage the mortgage and wipe out the investment. This can be quite dangerous for the ignorant person who jumps into the property market blindly thinking that it is the ticket to his retirement nirvana.

Last year, I warned of the danger of a property slump. This picture of the US market tells a better story. The numbers are the years in decimal places. The peak is 2007.15 year, meaning Feb 2007.

Happy investing. :)

[shaun64]

Yeah. If you are a multi-millionaire you usually don't have to worry about retiring. Unless you plan to buy a few luxury cars and mansions. But if you're from the middle-class or lower you should think about what will happen when you are retired. You will no longer have money constantly coming in and you know you use money every day. I think opening a small business or even a large one is a good idea.

financial planning for retirement