EPF targets 50% Sabah employers using e-payment

KOTA KINABALU: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is targeting 50 percent of the 29,000 employers in Sabah to use the e-Payment system for the payment of employee contributions by year-end.

EPF general manager (Contribution Department), Azmi Awang said so far, only 34 percent of employers in Sabah used the e-Payment system – the lowest in the country – despite having good Internet facilities.

“This may be due to (the level of) confidence (on e-Payment system) among employers in Sabah. Maybe, they are not so sure about the safety of remitting money using the e-Payment.

“Therefore, for those who are already using the e-Payment system, share your experience with other employers, because there is no problem using e-Payment, there has never been a case of losing money. EPF assures the system is completely safe and reliable,” he told Bernama after launching the e-Payment Open Day 2017 here yesterday.

For the record, employers in Sabah account for about six per cent of the RM5.4 billion contribution to the EPF every month.

Azmi said Sarawak was second lowest in the e-Payment aspect while Perlis and Perak had reached 70 percent, exceeding the national target of 60 percent by year-end.

He said the e-Payment system was a facility because employers could make payment of contributions anytime and anywhere as compared to the manual way which was tied to office hours.

In fact, employers with less than 10 employees could do so through Android-type smartphones.

“Back then, when using the manual method, the employer had to fill out the form ‘A’ that needed to be sent every month and at the same time, when the employer has filled out the form and sent it back to EPF, the EPF will enter the data, one by one.

“This requires a huge cost because we have about 6.8 million employees. Here (for the form printing process) alone, we (EPF) can save RM6 million a year, whereas, e-Payment costs nothing,” added Azmi.