Addendum: Inflation, BLR, OPR, FD Rates

Bank Negara has just published their latest report on Malaysian economy. As per my previous entry on inflation and real FD return rates, I would give you a clearer picture depicted from the BNM report. Picture is worth more than thousand words,:).


Real FD return rates is decreasing since Sept 07'.



MYR is depreciating against major currencies since early of the year.

So , what are going to do with your Fixed Deposit in Ringgit Malaysia? :).

*all images above are cannibalised from BNM's latest report

Inflation, OPR, BLR, Currency & You

Inflation, OPR, BLR, Currency. These words seems to be hitting the financial news headlines lately. Besides inflation, what the other terms has to do with you?

Staying in city is not easy, the cost of financing a property is always double the ones in smaller towns. The cost of financing is directly affected by BLR(Based Lending Rates). So, if you are staying in the city and planning to purchase a property, inflation and BLR will be one of the major concerns for you.

Inflation creeps into our daily life, causing us to spent more for less goods. This is what we can feel directly when inflation hits us. How about our savings, trust funds and stocks? Our liquid assets will be less valuable. Imagine your FD rates is 3 % while the inflation rate is 7 %. Whatever you have today is worth lesser tomorrow.

One of the ways to fight inflation is to increase the OPR (Overnight Policy Rates or Interbank Lending Rates). Increasing OPR will slow down inflation as business activity will slow down due to tightening of banking facilities. Besides that, the OPR might be higher than inflation rate as a result, giving positive return rate for your liquid assets.

Bank Negara has recently decided not to raise the OPR. Therefore, BLR will not be raised as well. Most of the property owners hence felt relief about the decision. The stock market has also return to bullish state as cost of borrowing for business remains stable following this announcement. However, the retaining of rates might also signify that our economy is lethargic. We cannot to afford a setback in economy growth now by raising the rates. On the negative side, inflation might also be spiraling up in months to come as a result of the decision.

Now that Bank Negara maintained the OPR rates, we are also facing yet another crisis, the currency crisis. If you check on the BNM FOREX rates, you will notice that MYR has been depreciating since the announcement of Bank Negara on 25th July.

Currency devaluation is a scary phenomena. Imagine your hard-earned money accumulated since the past 10 years is depreciating by 5-10 % every year. Your EPF money will be eaten up by inflation and currency devaluation. We are experiencing the toughest time ever, in wealth management and economy management.

It's far too complicated to analyse the best solution to manage our current economy. It's a tough decision to make in deciding whether to raise the rates in order to maintain our economy's health. I have been admiring Zeti for her calmness and intelligence for a long time. I hope she had made a wise decision this time.

Why SGD?

I have been advocating lately about keeping some cash in SGD.(I know this sounds a bit like a Malaysian "traitor" and will be condemn badly by Tun Mahathir if he came across my blog). Many might just ask me, why SGD ?
Singapore has been suffering from high inflation lately with steep fall in export revenue especially last two months. My wife visited Singapore 2 days back hoping to get some nice shirt for me and guess what, the same shirt I bought last year cost more now even during the Great Singapore Sale! Inflation, this is the reality that we have to face it, even in Singapore.
Singapore has limited land and manufacturing activities will not be able to sustain Singaporeans' cutting edge lifestyle anymore. Singaporean government, dubbed The Singapore Inc. , is gradually changing Singapore into a high tech, commercial and financial economy driven country. This reminds me about SimCity game where old factories are gradually faced out and replaced by high tech research labs and commercial offices as your population grows and as the city gets better.
This is what exactly Singapore is doing. No doubt, introducing stronger currency will hurt manufacturing driven economy especially South East Asian countries. Therefore, by getting rid of low cost manufacturing, strengthening the local currency will bring more good than bad. As the country is less dependent on manufacturing sector, stronger currency will not deplete the trade surplus as country's income is not dependent on this particular sector anymore. On the other hand, strengthening currency will cut down inflation(for a small country that relies heavily on imports), attract talents to work with high salaries and also attract depositors to keep their cash in SGD with Sg banks. Yes, Singapore is morphing itself into the so-called "Eastern Monaco".(Monaco is a small country where a lot of Europeans keeps their cash with Monaco banks and makes the country super rich)
Let's do some simple analysis. Malaysian's MYR is depegged from Singapore's SGD since 1992. What are the changes in terms of % for MYR/SGD currency exchange rate from 1992-2008? The maths is simple:
1992 - SGD 1 = MYR 1
2008 - SGD 1 = MYR 2.4

(2.4-1)/1 = 1.4/1 = 1.4 = 140%

16 years with 140 % of difference is not bad at all. 8.75% per year on average, which is better than the all-time-high foreign FD interest rate NZD is providing. Sounds sexy , huh ?

Many of my friends did the math and told me, "Cannot be la, SGD cannot be keep rising. You mean it will rise until it hits the same level as USD, are you kidding? There is always a limit"
Let's look at 2007-2008 rates. (with reference from BNM website) During June 2007, the rates was 2.20 and as of 30 June 2008, the rates was 2.41, there is a 9.51% rise in terms of exchange rates. If SGD rise another 8 % by June 2009 , the exchange rate will be something like 2.6, which sound possible. Besides that, we are really not sure how Malaysia politics will mess up our entire economy, turning our currency into "banana papers".
Again, the next question, why SGD? Why not Euro, CHF or GBP? Haha, the answer is simple, Singapore is so damn near and Malaysian can even open an account with Malaysian MyKAD. In any case of emergency, you can withdraw your cash from Singapore on a day trip. So , why make your life hard?
So, if you have some cash to spare, this is a good and safe option to go for, don't you think so ?