DianaTan.net

Depositors will be getting higher returns for their savings as banks raise interest rates for fixed deposits (FD) in tandem with the rise in lending rates. In a telephone survey, StarBiz found that most banking groups, with the exception of EON Capital Bhd, and Alliance Financial Group Bhd (AFG), had already increased their FD rates by about 0.25% yesterday. Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, RHB Capital Bhd and Affin Holdings Bhd have also upped their savings rates.

In general, a rising interest rate environment will bode well for banks with a low exposure to fixed-rate loans and a low proportion of current accounts and saving accounts (CASA) and alternative deposits. According to ECM Libra, among banking stocks, AFG would have the greatest potential for earnings accretion due to its high proportion of variable rate loans at 84% as well as high proportion of CASA at 37%. “We believe key beneficiaries include AFG, CIMB, Maybank and RHB Capital due to a combination of high exposure to floating-rate loans (average around 70%) and large pool of CASA deposits (average around 30%),” TA said.

The Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offer Rates (Klibor), which serves as the benchmark rates for interbank lending and borrowing activities, has also increased by 20 to 25 basis points across the board since March 4. Hong Leong Bank Bhd chief operating officer Kua Wei Jin said banks would have to borrow at higher rates from the interbank market if there was a hike in OPR.

“The FD, being one of the sources for banks to fund their loans, will also go up when the Klibor or OPR increases,” he said. Nevertheless, Citibank Bhd consumer bank treasurer Lee Chet Leng noted that FD rates were not linked one-to-one to Klibor as they were often driven by different factors. “FD rates are a reflection of market-based factors such as Klibor, the competitive and regulatory environment and the desire for banks to achieve a particular nature of funding mix,” Lee said.

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a divide nd of 5.65% for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2009, an increase of 1.15 percentage points over the 4.50% paid out for 2008. The dividend rate was declared on the back of the highest ever net income achieved of RM19.63bil, an increase of 34.82% from the RM14.56bil recorded in the previous year.

“2009 was a significant year for the EPF as it rode out the impact of the global financial crisis. “While the EPF continues to be challenged by the fragile economic environment, our investments nonetheless delivered a sound performance for the year,” chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said in a statement yesterday.

During the year under review, 72.53% of total invest ment was devoted to fixed income instruments in line with EPF’s prudent approach, while 27.05% was in equities and the remainder in property. As of Dec 31, 2009, EPF’s investment portfolio grew 8.55% or RM29.25bil to RM371.26bil from RM342.01bil in 2008.

On prospects for next year, Samsudin said it would be “greatly dependent on the economic performance of the country and internationally.” He said globally, financial markets continued to be volatile and this might have an impact on the price performance of EPF’s investments and future income. “We will continue to focus on our key goals of preserving the capital of our contributors and ensuring a satisfactory real rate of return,” he added.

Google Buzz is a new social media tool just launched to connect friends using Gmail. You could see the “Buzz” button in your Gmail account. You can link buzz to other sites such as Twitter, Blogs, BlogSpot, Youtube, etc. Add what you want to share in “view connected sites”. It is like Twitter or Facebook where you can share messages with your followers or micro blog.

You may convert your Gmail friends to your blog reader with Buzz. You can also integrate into WordPress Blog to increase even more traffic. The Google Buzz plugin add a buzz button on every page / post. When a visitor clicks on the button, your post’s link and title will be shared on their buzz. This way your post may reach their friends too, and increase traffic a lot which is what every blogger wants. Without traffic, your blog will become insignificant and eventually cease to exist.

Last nite was very noisy with a lot of sounds of firecrackers when I was about to sleep. I am also in a holiday mood after the long break but need to start working today. I guess I have also put on some weight after much eating over the week with my sisters in Hatyai. No doubt, it was enjoyable and we plan to do this every year. Generally life has been good to me and I have been blessed with a steady job to work at home, good friends and with left over to save for my retirement unlike a certain blogger who talks about creativity but has no creative ideas to maintain a job or to earn money and is struggling to feed herself and her famished dog. Her idea of creativity is how to cheat the company of honest working hours and to find fault with others to appear as doing her ‘job’. I have the unfortunate time of working with this specimen and only found out all her bad habits after I have left the job. And I hope she is reading this post!

During Chinese New Year, the Chinese will bring out their gold jewellery from the bank to wear them on this festive occasion. They will be busy visiting friends and families and give out red packets of money or ‘ang pows’ to children or unmarried youths. If you have the spare cash to invest, it is a good idea to buy gold bullion to hedge against inflation. And recently, it was in the news that both China and India invested billions in tons of Gold instead of the USA greenback which keeps falling since some time ago. You will never go wrong when you invest in gold and my local Public bank account allows clients to open a GSA or Gold Savings Account to trade in gold bars by the weight.

My family and I are now back from a wonderful trip to Hatyai where we bought a lot of toiletries and cosmetics and lingerie. The Wacoal brand there is so much cheaper compared to Penang and I also bought from Triumph. We had salad at a Singapore brand restaurant called Sizzlers. Some of the photos here were taken in Penang while others were taken in Hatyai. Above is the ‘yee sang’ that we had last night where we tossed it for luck.

This is a bento set when we had dinner in Fuji restaurant in Hatyai. My youngest sister ordered this while I had avocado salad, below.

Don’t this look tempting? I decided to eat something lighter as I had put on 1 kg already over the last few days. I like the decoration and the way they cut it out.

This photos was taken in a hotel lobby with the cherry blossoms and potted chrysanthemums decorating the place.

This is a mesmerizing photo of the prosperity bamboo shoots which was place in the hotel.

This is one of the dishes I had in Penang some time back – 4 seasons on a platter – in a local restaurant.

Gong Xi Fa Chai – which means Happy Chinese New Year in Mandarin.

I would like to wish my readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year of the Tiger 2010. There will be a break from blogging for 1 week as I will be going to Haadyai with my family for 3 days and 2 nights starting from tomorrow early in the morning where the van will come to my house to pick us up. My youngest sister did all the arrangement including booking of van and hotel stays.

Here are some eye candy for you of Chinese New Year themes and pictures. Meanwhile don’t eat too much and watch out of that weight.

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) dividend for 2009 is expected to be higher compared to the 4.5% paid out in the previous year. EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said this was due to the local share market’s stable position and good investment returns. “A meeting on dividend rates will be held this month, while an announcement will be made in March,” he told reporters here yesterday.

Samsudin, who is also Putrajaya Corporation president, had earlier presented prizes to winners of a fishing competition held in conjunction with Federal Territory Day celebrations. In December, EPF announced that it obtained RM5.5bil in profits in the third quarter of last year, an increase of RM696.32mil compared to RM4.8bil in the previous quarter. EPF chief executive officer Tan Sri Azlan Zainol said EPF funds had now increased to RM361.09bil compared with RM353.93bil in the second quarter of last year. For the year 2008, 12 million EPF members received a dividend of 4.5%, which was lower than the 5.8% for 2007

I hope the EPF dividend will be about 6% or more this year and I have also upped my contribution to 50% by signing a form. Previously, the EPF personnel will come to my house to collect the monthly contribution but since late last year, I have sent in the cheques by post. Just like last year, the dividend for 2009 will only be updated in March.

There is a personal injury claims service helping UK citizens claim compensation on a no win no fee basis. This is a good service as you don’t pay if you don’t win in court. It is a win win situation for both parties and creates an encouragement for the company to fight out your case so that you can claim money for personal injury later on. The No win no fee basis will surely attract a lot of customers since it is value for money. There have been cases where insurance companies refuse to pay out compensation for accidents of its clients citing various reasons so that they can keep the money. Therefore you need to engage a good lawyer to fight out your case in court so that you can get your reimbursement for any accidents on the road or even during the course of work or travel.

I realized that I have put too much information on the internet. So I am trying to turn off my public profile lest some crazy jealous stalkers come near me. I have disabled a few web applications that link all my blogs together as I don’t need such publicity to show my blogs anymore. I can get traffic from good honest readers who come and go and not bitch about it elsewhere. I have also put down my nice personal photos which are from now onwards for own viewing only. Notice that I no longer blog what I eat or stay anymore, so you don’t have to compete with me. I have my own set of problems to take care of to ever bother about such things anymore. I also did not renew a personal domain that I have maintained for a few years as it is not generating high enough income to warrant continuity.