Financial literacy key to avoid falling for scams

KUALA LUMPUR: Building financial capability and literacy among Malaysians is crucial to avoid more people from becoming victims of scams involving illegal investments.

Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Ghani said since December 2015, more than 500,000 people in the country fell prey to scams involving illegal investments and syndicates offering high returns.

“Therefore, investor education plays a key role in ensuring adequate investor protection and as precautionary measures in order to prevent (people from) falling victim to these malicious schemes,” he said when officiating the inaugural Syariah Investing Fair 2017.

Themed ‘Jom Labur Syariah’, the two-day event was organised by Bursa Malaysia to promote investment and trading in stock market and Syariah-compliant investing for the retail public.

Johari also expressed concern over Bank Negara Malaysia’s data, which showed that 72 per cent of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members, who are at the pre-retirement age of 54, have savings of just RM50,000 and below.

He said this could mean that 50 per cent of retirees would have spent their entire EPF savings within five years and if left unchecked, this situation would have a serious impact on the individuals, their families and dependents, as well as on Malaysia’s social and economic development.

“The retail public must grab the opportunity to explore, gain knowledge and learn the steps on how to start investing, and most importantly, on Syariah-compliant capital market investment products and investing on Bursa Malaysia-i,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia Chairman Tan Sri Amirsham A Aziz said despite commendable developments in Syariahcompliant equities, there still seemed to be a large knowledge gap among the public on the extensive range of opportunities and benefits offered by these products.

He said many Malaysians were already exposed to debt and equity markets by virtue of being passive investors through their investments in mutual funds and unit trusts.

However, Bursa Malaysia aims to empower investors towards being more active in their investment decisions, he added.

As at Oct 31, 677 out of 902 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia are Syariah-compliant, making up 75.1 per cent of the market, while Syariah market capitalisation made up 62.8 per cent of the total market capitalisation of RM1.86 trillion.

“This not only shows the strength of Malaysia’s Syariahcompliant market but also an indication that it is gaining wider acceptance.

“Liquidity of Syariah stocks have also seen a positive growth with the average daily value of Syariah stocks trading on the exchange increasing by 23 per cent year-on-year,” Amirsham added.