EPF Calculation Guide: Understand Your Malaysian Retirement Savings

EPF, or Employees Provident Fund, is a Malaysian agency that is controlled by the Ministry of Finance. It manages the retirement savings plan for Malaysia's private and non-pensionable public sector employees. The EPF had 12.7 million members as of the end of 2010. The dividend that EPF offers each year varies depending on market conditions, but calculating what return to expect is quite simple.

Step 1

Record the amount of money in your EPF account after every month and the dividend rate for that year. As an example, your EPF balance as of January was $1,000 and the dividend for the year was 5.65%.

Step 2

Multiply your monthly balance by the yearly dividend rate. In the example you would multiply 1,000 by 0.0565 and get 56.5.

Step 3

Divide the result from Step 2 by the number of days in the year, usually 365. In the example you would divide 56.5 by 365 and get a result of 0.155.

Step 4

Multiply the result from Step 3 by the number of days in the month. In the example, because there are 31 days in the month, you would multiply 0.155 by 31 and get a result of 4.805. Your return for the month of January was $4.81.

Step 5

Calculate your return for every month using the same process as outlined in Steps 1-4. Add each month's returns together at the end of the year to calculate your anticipated return for the year.