Malaysia Best Rates 2011 July 25 Update

Fix Deposit

Affin Bank still offers the highest 3.6% for 12 months. 3.1% to 3.35% is common with all other banks. 1 month FD is mostly at 3% to 3.05%. Most of the foreign banks continue to offer lower FD rates.

Base Lending Rate

Most banks offers 6.6% now except JP Morgan Chase offers the lowest at 6.2%.

Saving Accounts

The Bank of Nova Scotia offers 2.05% while Bangkok Bank and Bank of Tokyo offers 2%

CIMB Air Asia Saver Account offers 1.6%

Don't forget you can get a simple widget

like above to show on your blog / web site.

Just visit here to see how.

Car Loan

Maybank continues to offer the lowest car loan rate starting from 2.7%. However, this is NOT a standard rate apply to all applicants. The actual rate can range up to 4.3%. Alliance bank on the other hand offers 2.8% to 3% which may be a better deal in general sense.

Bank Muamalat offers 2.85% for both New and Used cars but it requires an admin charges of RM600.

CIMB offers 3.25% for used cars.

Don't forget Car Loan rate is Fix Term Rate

which is effectively a MUCH HIGHER

than variable term rate

like House Loan and Fix Deposit.

House Loan

There are too many factors in considering a good house loan, so we don't think its fair to simply summarize them here.

Our advice is to source for at least 3 offers, preferably a mix of local and foreign banks.

Malaysia Best Rates 2010 March 11 update

1 month Fix Deposit

Most banks offer 2.25% now except a few ones. Most of the ones who are still stuck at 2.0% are international banks like Bank of China, JP Morgan, Bank of Nova Scotia and Alliance banks.

1 year Fix Deposit

Highest offered rates is 2.75% by Affin Bank, AmBank, Bangkok Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Deutsche Bank, Hong Leong Bank, Malayan Bank.

Base Lending Rate

Most local banks stand at 5.8% now with Affin offers the lowest at 5.75%. International banks offer lower rate starting from 5.50% by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Saving Accounts

Kuwait Finance House continues to offer highest saving interest rate in its KFH Savings Account-i at 1.5%. This account is also very simple and straight forward.

Other than that, Standard Chartered's Al-Wadiah Savings Account-i offer 1.0% for up to RM 10,000 savings.

CIMB's Air Asia Savers Account and Mudharabah Saving Account-i also offers 1.0%.

Other accounts who seems like offering high interest rate but require high amount of saving are excluded. Some special accounts like OCBC's iQ Saving is also excluded because their offer rate may seems high at 3.28% but their effective rate is hard to simplify for general public. In short, for those accounts, if you use up the benefits they offer then it would be a great deal but if you do not use any of those stuff then its better you stick to a lower but 'real' rate, simpler and more straight forward saving account.

Don't forget you can get a simple widget

like above to show on your blog / web site.

Just visit here to see how.

Car Loan : NEW Car

Maybank continues to offer the lowest car loan rate starting from 2.7%. However, this is NOT a standard rate apply to all applicants. The actual rate can range up to 4.3%.

Bank Muamalat offers 2.85% for both New and Used cars but it requires an admin charges of RM600.

Most other banks rates offer are 3.25% for New cars.

Car Loan : Used Car

CIMB offers the lowest 3.25% used car loan rate.

Most of other best used car loan rates offer are 3.75% by Affin, Hong Leong Bank, Alliance, EON and RHB.

Don't forget Car Loan rate is Fix Term Rate

which is effectively a MUCH HIGHER

than variable term rate

like House Loan and Fix Deposit.

House Loan

Affin remains as the best house loan offer at BLR - 2.3%.

Standard Chartered offers BLR - 2.25%

Most banks offers are BLR - 1.8%.

Multi-tiers house loan offers are excluded because it would be impossible to simplify their pro and cons without knowing the actual details of your particular loan details. Hence, only simple and straight forward house loan offers are compared.

Charge your future usage : how did it happen ?

The way credit card companies forward calculate interest has sicken many users. Together with the 5 cents round up mechanism, there are cases where its not even the users fault not to totally pay off their last month balance.

Some are still in shock how consumers can be abused in such a way. Well, this is how ...

Credit card companies used to charge 18% interest on the amount you underpay and owe to them. Seeing that this high interest has caused many people in debt and even bankruptcy, banks are urged to reduce that rate. So the project of multi-tier interest rate was born.

If the amount you owe is not that much, banks may reduce that rate to 13.5% for example. Like wise, if you continue not to pay, banks will have the rights to charge 18% interest again. So lower interest rate is imposed on lower loan amount.

So far so good isn't it ?

Well, banks are going to give you more. In addition ...

We will give you 22 days interest free on all transactions, if last month outstanding balance, as per monthly statement, are settled within due date. In cases where this interest free is not applicable, we will charge interest on all transactions from the posting date.

Don't doubt my grammar, its a carefully formulated sentences very similar to the actual terms and clauses. All the commas and periods are there for a good reason.

It is still fair isn't it ? What it says is if I paid last month balance in full, I will not be charged interest for another 22 days. Else of course I should pay interest.

There are 2 sentences up there.

The first one evolves around monthly statement. If the bank generates your statement on the 1st of the month, you don't need to pay interest of the amount on that statement up to 22th. Which is also usually the payment due date. Ok still ...

The 'all' in blue color means all the transactions on that monthly statement. Not 'all' the other transactions you used before and after the statement. Guess what, the transactions you used before is a brought forward balance, so its NOT a transaction and therefore will continue be charged interest and excluded from this interest free offer. You are also NOT getting interest free for all future transactions because they are NOT on that statement yet.

The second part starts with "if interest free is not applicable". It doesn't say if you don't pay then we charge you. There are many other reasons interest free is not applicable and no matter what they are, you will be charged. So there is ONE specific scenario you may get interest free period and ALL THE OTHER scenarios would allow us to charge you. Thats basically what it sums up to.

Now there is also a word 'all' in the 2nd part. This time, there is no statement mentioned. This 'all' would mean ALL transactions including the future ones you are going to make. And the interest is calculated based on the posting date which is totally ok even if it is a future date.

I am not quite sure if I have presented this clearly. There is the trick of saying something seems genuine and simple but yet a small word in it turn the whole thing around. A seems-to-be very thoughtful offer has been given, most of us were ok with it and now its too late to turn the game plan.

Banks came to us on day light, offered us lower interest tiers and a new way to calculate interest ( with interest free period !! ) and we bought it. So now its too late for us to pursue normal channels to change this. Whatever left is to propagate this knowledge to more and avoid to be taken advantage off.

If still want to do more, please get more people to read this series of articles ...

Credit Card forward calculate interest

How did it happen ? ( this article )

Why do they need to do this ?

What can we do ?

BEST rates in Malaysia - update 2009 12 26

Although Fix Deposit rate stays at 2% for 1 month and 2.5% for 12 months but generally FD interests are 'starting' to rise. This is inline with the speculation that interest rates will be raised by Bank Negara ... and its just a matter of time. This trend will affect both FD rate and BLR.

Three Banks have the lowest BLR since mid 2009 : 5.25%

The Royal Bank of Scotland Berhad

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Malaysia) Berhad

J.P.Morgan Chase Bank Berhad

But most loans come in terms like BLR + or - another numbers. Remember to compare your own true and effective loan rate including fee++ before deciding on a loan package. Usually these lowest BLR banks also offer less attractive effective final rates ie. BLR - a lower number. Some other deals that follow strictly on BLR on the other hand, would be great to deal with these banks.

The highest saving account interest is 1.88%

Mudharabah Basic Savings Account-i by CIMB Bank Berhad

minimum deposit RM 20

interest calculated daily, compounded monthly

The actual rate may only be 1% now. I suspect that they haven't update their marketing system yet. The actual rate payment is on a profit share bases, so the rate is not really as 'guaranteed' as other saving accounts. But historically, statistically and even politically you will most probably be getting back slightly higher interest than promised. For how long no one knows ...

However, this is still the best choice for a saving account. Other banks' Al-wadiah or Mudharabah accounts are ok too.

Some offers 1.5%

J.P.Morgan Chase Bank Berhad - Saving Account, calculated daily,compound every 6 months

Bank of America - BBS Saving Account, calculated daily,compound every 6 months

Bangkok Bank - Basic Savings Account, calculated daily,compound every 6 months

The other high interest accounts 1% are

The Bank of Nova Scotia Berhad - Basic Savings Account, calculated daily,compound every 6 months

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ - Savings Account, min RM200, calculated daily,compound every 6 months

Best Car Loan rate for New Car is 2.7% by Maybank

Bank Muamalat offers 2.85% but its effective rate could be lower than Maybank. But it has a RM600 admin charge. Both banks can have up to 90% margin and 9 years tenure.

Bank Muamalat offers the same rate for Used Cars. That makes it the BEST rate for used car loan. Late payment charge in Bank Muamalat is only 1%, compares to the normal practice 8% in all other banks.

BEST rates in Malaysia - update 2009 10 06

This is a comment update to FREE Info on Best Rates in Malaysia :

Car Loan

Maybank still tops the list after many months offering starting from 2.7%. The trick is that not everybody can get that rate and further more its mostly for national cars only. So the way they published their car loan rate has successfully made them the best choice over the past few months.

2nd runner up is Bank Muamalat whose car loan rate is only 2.85% but charges a RM 600 admin fee.

House Loan

Affin bank still top the list with BLR - 2.3%, the trick is that they don't approve many loans. They have this self image that they are the 'high quality' house loan processors ...

2nd runner up is Standard Chargered BLR - 2.25%, who is relatively more flexible and more marketing oriented. That means they may listen to what you need, try their best to request benefits on your behalf, with the hope of getting your business.

Fix Deposite

FD rates haven't changed since the recession staying at 2% which really puzzle me. If the recession is really over, why isn't the saving rate goes back up yet ?

BLR is generally staying at 5.55% with a few exception where foreign banks are offering slightly lower rate.

How does Best Rate make its choice

How to use this Best Rate on your own web site

How to Find all the latest rates yourself

FREE info on BEST Rates in Malaysia

Its been a while since I start sharing the latest BEST rates in Malaysia including Saving Accounts, Fix Deposit, Car and House Loan, BLR etc. The orange color bar start with wordings "Best Rates..." at the top right angle on this page is an example. Or you can see one below here too ...

Since then it has been made into a widget and anyone can include this info at their own blog / web site by following some simple instruction here.

It is NOT easy to simply pick a number out of the long list of available choices and call it Best rate. Furthermore, there are so many considerations and factors that it is almost imposible for other people to 'decide' which rate is the BEST rate for you. Hence, lets review why and how malpf makes its list.

Fix Deposit is a finance tool you use when you have a sum of money that you will NOT be using for a while and you can gain Higher saving interest than normal saving account. So the higher the rate the better it is. Hence the interest rate is mark in blue color.

One of the greatest pit fall in FD is that if you withdraw before its maturity date, you may lose your interest or even have to pay penalty to it - liquidity problem. On another aspect, its best to increase the frequency of 'taking' the interest and put in back into the FD itself to enjoy the power of compounding interest. Hence keeping these 2 in mind (liquidity and compound interest), 1 month FD is the better choice compare to other longer term FD even if longer term FD may give higher return. Choosing compound more frequent with lower rate is better than locking the fund with a rate that seems high today.

Hence when comparing FD rate, 1 month FD is used and the higher the rate is the better.

BLR or Base Lending Rate is another important number where most of the variable loan will use as the reference loan rate. The lower this number is, the better it is. Hence the rate is marked with RED color. Just to add a note that business loan can benefit more from lower BLR than housing loan.

Saving account is one of the hardest ones to compare due to its large variation in future. There are junior and senior accounts, ordinary and islamic accounts etc. However, if we focus on the fundamental of saving account, it is a finance tool to 'temporary' keep our money to maintain our cash flow, ie. day to day liquidity. So the ease of interest calculation is important and we shall focus mainly on working adults ( Not Junior Nor Senior accounts ). For ease of calculation, multi-tier rates are less welcome. Certain accounts who impose minimum amount before paying interest is also less welcome. After considering these factors, we can pick the highest interest rate as the Best Rate (in blue).

Car Loan is usually fix loan rate. Car loan for used car and new car is very different. However, use car's selling price is very largely different as well. So when used car loan rate is too high, simply shop around more looking for a cheaper car will do. Hence back to the Best rates consideration, it is more reliable to consider NEW car loan rate where the car price is pretty much standard. In this case, the lower the number the better it is. ( red )

Lastly is House Loan, which is also a very tough call for Best Rate. However, borrowing principals from saving accounts, multi-tier rates are less favorable here. Getting 1-2 years of Zero interest by committing to potentially high rate in future is NOT exactly a great way to go. Therefore malpf only concentrates on the simplest BLR-X% where the Higher the X is the Better it is, ( blue )

Among all other best rates, house loan best rate may be the least influencing one because all other considerations like Zero Moving Cost and the most recent flexi all in one account, overdraft without the overdraft rate feature makes it really tough to generalize their good and bad.

Alright, thats the start of why and how these rates are choosen.

Check out below on some of the new Best Rates too, some of them may be useful to some people too ... ie.

FD12mth : 12 months Fix Deposit for those who are really sure will not touch those money for a year

Save1mil : Saving account that has MORE than 1 million in it

Save15k : Saving account thas has MORE than RM 15,000 in it

iSave : Islamic Saving account

UsedCarL : Car Loan rate for used cars

Bank Negara Museum Opening May 2009

Malaysia's Bank Negara Museum opening this May 2009 !!

Where Money Matters and Practical Knowledge is Important ...

Money As Debt Video

I have told a long story how Money Turns Evil in the past.  ( Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 )  The last part was actually more like a basic tutorial to forex trading as a matter of fact.

Anyway, I read from Meshio blog about an interesting video - Money As Debt.  The story line may have some similarity to my story but this video is 10 times better !!

A 47-minute animated short by Paul Grignon (via BB) explaining how the monetary system used to be, and how the existing mo

netary system works

 

Have FUN watching !!

Currency Turns Evil - part 2

At first money is invented to facilitate buy-sell transactions which is the best invention of all time.  Then value of money is tighted to gold as a standard (what I called Big Bang in Finance World).  

Then some greedy person use war to conquer and take over other people's gold ( click here to see old post about this )

But very soon "WAR" becomes a very costly way to acquire gold to print more money.

( but its not costly to launch war against petroleum - another story)

But very soon some smart people figure out that they don't have to follow the standard of gold-money-value.  Afterall, that is just a standard set for more stupid people to follow.  In reality, like everything else, the value of an item is driven by Supply and Demand.

So USA quickly set ONE standard - use US Dollar in inter-country transactions.

Whenever USA take over a country, they set USD as the standard global currency before they leave.  When USA lends money to a country, they set USD as standard there.  Whenever you want to buy and sell with USA, you HAVE to use USD.  These are all fine ... because afterall, its their right to request so.

The sad thing is everyone else followed blindly.

Says country A and B deal with USA using USD which are perfectly fine.  However, because the banking systems in A and B were greatly influenced by USA, all the transactions are FIX (hard coded) to USD.  

Hence when A and B are doing businesses, they use USD as standard even though it is NOT their home currencies.

Imagine you are sending money from Malaysia to China, you cann't use MYR ( or RM ) and you cannot use CNY ( or RMB ), you will have to buy USD using your MYR in order to send the money over.

So whoever you are, wherever you are, if you are transacting globally, you will have to BUY USD.  As mentioned before, when demand rise, value rise.

The increase of this Demand alone allows USA to continously print more money almost forever without the need of gold at all.  Because there is no sign of over hauling our global banking system at all.

Some people are still wondering if World War 3 will occur one day.  What they didn't know is WW3 is way over and USA has conquered world economy many years ago simply by implementing one global standard in currency.

The only smarter people who were able to protect their own territory is Britain.  And some better light shed among all these is the creation of Euro - where the smaller players group together 'trying' to break away with the permanent damage cause by this currency standard WW3 domination.

Up until here, its still history, although recent history.  We cann't blame USA for playing this trick because who wouldn't want to print more money, especially when all I need to do is just to ask the other party to use my standard ?  My standard is better than no standard isn't it ?  

Most of the 3rd world countries were in deep shit that time.  Imagine we didn't even have enough food to eat, how could we be smart enough to say NO to a non-intrusive USD standard ?

The next part is the last part.  Like before we didn't eat enough food, today we don't really get fed enough neither spiritually.  Which is also the part when currency really turns evil .... stay tune ...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Finance Big Bang Theory

I have this Big Bang theory about Finance ...

At First, there Was Nothing,

Then there is Everything !

Long long time ago, we exchange goods for a living.  Sometimes I asked for 4 chickens to exchange my 1 bag of rice, but some other times, my friend is only willing to give 3 chickens.  So as times go, more and more people do not like this constant changing of 'price' and they want standardization.  So 'Money' is born.

We look down and there are some stones on the ground.  First we 'define' the chicken as 10 stones, since my bag of rice is 4 chickens then my bag of price is worth 40 stones.  So we started collecting stones instead of keeping too many cows and sheeps at home to represent our wealth.

It was all fine within our own family and friends because we trust each other.  Then some stranger came and just pick up stones from the ground to buy my rice.  Soon I ran out of rice and he has all the rice, so basically he took over my rice business and started to control pricing in my town.

So we need some special way to identify our special stones.  I started marking all the stones that I used to buy and sell things.  The chicken guy did the same.  Soon all sort of marking stones are in the market and guess what ?  A stranger came in and arbituary do some marking on the stone and took over the chicken business.

Then we learn that we have to 'standardize' the marking on the stones and it is too big a task for us because we are already full time producing rice and chicken.  The stranger volunteer, "Since I am able to twist all the systems you guy come up with, apparently I am a smarter guy in this area.  So if you let me come up with a special marking stones for you and everybody use that stones, there will be no problem !"  He ended with a strong .. " Trust me !".

So the first 'modern day money' is born. It is a piece of metal with hard to replicate marking represending the value of the stones we used before - the stranger called it coin.  So all of us including the rice and chicken producers keep our stones in the stranger's house.  For each stone we deposit there, the stranger gives us 100 coins.  Since then our buy and sell activities are better managed.

In case you haven't figured out yet,

the stone is called Gold today

and the stranger's house is called Bank

Our Stones

The Stranger's House

Car Loan vs House Loan interest rate

This may be a little bit too technical for some but definitely useful for those who really care about their money and has something to do with or going to have car loan.

In Malaysia, vehicle loan rate is calculated flat, forward sum to the future.  For example,

You borrow RM 100,000 vehicle loan for 7 years at 3%.  Your total repayment for the whole period is 100,000 x ( 1 +  7 x 0.03 ) = RM 121,000.  There are 84 months in 7 years, so every month you have to pay 121,000 / 8 = RM 1,440

Don't get confuse with this 3% car loan rate with the Fix Deposit rate, or BLR or House Loan interest rate.  Because the calculation method is different, they are not comparable to each other.

In short, in order to compare your car loan interest rate to your house loan rate, you need to convert the car loan rate into a compound rate.

Table below is a reference for such conversion.

For example, the highlighted in yelow says that.  If your Car Loan interest rate is 3% and you are taking a 3 years loan, then it is equivalent to 5.68% house loan interest rate.

My rule of thumb on this topic is :  Simply multiply car loan rate by 1.9 to convert them into a house loan interest rate.

Have fun continue to be puzzled and confused by above table ..  have a great weekend !!

The above table and figures are one of the TOP SECRET in personal finance that even most 
Bankers don't have, not to mention your financial planner, insurance or mutual fund agent.  But if they do, please let me know ...

Inflation vs BLR

In my Personal Finance make simple, there are only 2 big numbers :  Inflation and BLR.

Inflation tells you how much more expensive your daily routine cost is going to get.  Or how much your money will worth less in future.

BLR or Base Lending Rate is used by bank as reference how much they should charge you when they lend you money.

Both Inflation and BLR were created in Free Market, and therefore perfectly suitable for the Free Market - a trading ground that has Total Freedom.

However, Total Freedom also welcome frauds and scams.  Hence, in order to protect 95% of the population, controls have to come in.  Since then, Inflation and BLR have become more complicated.

Forget about what the goverment say, 

What is YOUR OWN Inflation ?

1. List down all your "daily routine" items and their costs

2. Determine what quantity / amount of each item is consumpt over a fix period of time

3. Sum up the total cost for that period

That would be your Living Cost !

After you have done the above for sometime, you can compare your living cost.  For example, last year was $1000 per month and this year is $1100/month, then your inflation rate this year compare to last year is 10%.  ( It doesn't have to be exact but if you do the exercise above, you will have a pretty good idea )

And this is the Real and Only Inflation Rate that you care about, 

not any other numbers experts tell you.

I don't borrow money from Bank,

Why should I care about BLR ?

First of all, all personal finance money goes to bank.  It doesn't matter if you buy insurance or mutual fund or stocks, you pay to a bank !  You may write a seller's account number but you still "pay to" the bank.  And Bank has ALL our money.  

Bank takes your money and lend it to others.  Bank promises you an interest rate and the Lender promises bank a higher rate.  The difference between the interest rates is what Bank earns.  Bank uses BLR to govern the lending rate to the money borrower.

So BLR can be used as an indicator to how well economy is doing ( again, actually much more complicated than this, but bear with me first ).  Actually the effect could be reverse, raising or lowering BLR can affect economy growth.

BLR Trends

Rules Of Thumb

1.  Your "Saving" should earns more than your inflation.

2.  Your "Income" should grow as much as BLR if not higher.

footnote : This post is written by a layman for the layman friends.  Hence quite a lot of terms used here may cause discomfort to many economists.  Don't curse and shout yet, just stick around a bit longer.  Eventually things will get clearer