by NURUL SUHAIDI / pic MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

THE Retirement Fund (Inc) (KWAP) is on track to achieve its RM200 billion gross fund size target by 2025 despite expectations of various challenges in 2023.

CEO Nik Amlizan Mohamed said KWAP’s current gross fund size amounted to more than RM175 billion.

Nik Amlizan told reporters this during a visit by Deputy Finance Minister I Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (picture) to the retirement fund today. 

Chief investment officer Hazman Hilmi Sallahuddin said KWAP will remain aggressive in its investment deployment this year. 

“Generally, the market has been very tough this year. We were quite positive about the opening of China and then suddenly the banking crisis emerged. 

“So, we foresee it is going to be a challenging year but having said that, we are optimistic about the second half of this year,” he said, adding that this will not affect KWAP’s 2023 investment strategy.

“We hope the market will improve. We were quite aggressive in terms of investment last year, and we foresee the same this year,” he noted. 

Meanwhile, Ahmad said there are to-date 22,000 fraud victims reported, across Malaysia among all demographics including pension fraud involving a total loss amounting to RM850 million.

“Scammers know their victims’ data and how much of their retirement funds they are receiving.

“This is a worrying issue because the pensioners will lose their retirement savings and gratuity amount to scammers,” he said.

He noted that the number of pension recipients in the country is growing and currently stands over 770,000 recipients.

“Existing and future pensioners are reminded to be aware of schemes found too good to be true,” Ahmad said.

Notably, KWAP is the third largest retirement fund body after Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Permodalan Malaysia Bhd (PNB) with a total fund of RM160 billion.

Ahmad Maslan added that annually, the government spends RM26.7 billion to pay civil servant pensioners.

Nik Amlizan also announced that the group is undertaking a holistic approach to assist current and future pensioners with retirement preparedness through its MyPesara initiatives.

Under a new tagline, “Your Retirement Companion”, 17 physical outreach MyPesara programmes have been planned for 2023.

KWAP is actively raising awareness on scam activities through the MyPesara mobile app and provides online learning on financial, health and retirement planning for the public.

“In 2022, we managed to reach over 26,000 pensioners and pension derivatives recipients via our outreach programmes. This year, we target to reach out to 50,000,” Nik Amlizan added.

Two major events under the MyPesara initiatives this year will be Karnival MyPesara and Anugerah MyPesara.