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In her blog post published today (26 February), MPFA Chairman Mrs Ayesha Macpherson Lau revealed that the MPF recorded a positive return of 6.1% in January this year. The total MPF assets increased to over $1.12 trillion, representing an average amount of MPF assets per scheme member of about $239,000. She encouraged the working population to enhance their retirement protection through proactive management of their MPF.  

Mrs Lau said that about 70% of MPF assets (about $770 billion) are transferrable according to scheme members’ choice of MPF schemes. The Employee Choice Arrangement (ECA) (commonly known as “MPF semi-portability”), which has been in place for 10 years, allows employees to transfer their MPF in one lump sum derived from their employee mandatory contributions in their contribution accounts to an MPF scheme of their own choice once a year. Since the inception of the ECA in November 2012 to January 2023, the cumulative amount of MPF assets transferred via the ECA was $42 billion, with about 84,000 ECA cases processed on average each year. As at the end of January 2023, about $220 billion of MPF assets in contribution accounts are transferable by employees. 

Scheme members can also consolidate their personal accounts¹ into their preferred MPF scheme at any time. As of January 2023, the total amount of MPF assets in personal accounts was about $550 billion. In the past year, a total of $11.7 billion of MPF assets were transferred via consolidation of personal accounts. 

Tax-deductible voluntary contributions (TVC) offers another way for scheme members to choose their preferred MPF scheme. As at end January 2023, there were 65,000 TVC accounts, with a cumulative contribution amount of about $7.7 billion since April 2019. Scheme members can set up a TVC account and make contributions to their preferred MPF scheme that offers a TVC account. They can also transfer the entire balance of a TVC account to another MPF scheme offering a TVC account at any time. Mrs Lau reminded the working population to grasp the opportunity to set up a TVC account and make contributions before the end of the 2022-2023 tax year to enjoy the triple benefits of enhancing their retirement reserves, tax savings and flexibility of choosing MPF schemes. 

Scheme members should also note that the entire MPF transfer process normally takes two to three weeks, as it involves the administrative procedures of the related MPF trustees. There will be an “out-of-market” period between the original trustee redeeming the funds in the original scheme and the new trustee subscribing to the funds in accordance with scheme member’s fund choices in the new scheme. When the eMPF Platform is launched, the administrative procedure for transferring MPF assets will be automated resulting in the shortening of the entire process to one to two weeks. Scheme members can then transfer their MPF via the internet or mobile applications anytime and anywhere, making MPF management much easier. 

For the full version of the article, please visit the MPFA blog. The blog is in Chinese only.

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26 February 2023

_{1. Personal accounts accrue MPF benefits derived from a scheme member’s previous employment and/or MPF benefits transferred from a scheme member’s contribution account under current employment by exercising the transfer right under the ECA.}