Articles / Blogs - Ethan Teh ~ Your Financial Adviser

Base Rate (BR) to Standardised Base Rate (SBR)

Throughout my journey in financial service industry since 2012, I have gone through the change of Lending Rate reference from BLR to BR (year 2015) and now SBR. What’s new with this SBR? I will summarises into 3 key points.

BR to SBR starting 1 Aug 2022. Source: BNM Website

Raya and the Last Dragon ~ Kumandra is a Fantasy World?

Since weekend is coming, today I’m not going to write about Financial Planning. Just done watching Raya and the Last Dragon on Disney+ Hotstar..

Disney described this as an adventure of Raya and the Last Dragon to the Fantasy World of Kumandra. If you’d watched it, you would understand Kumandra. I’ve to admit that I enjoy Disney’s animation partly due to the message brought.

Same Incident, Different Decision… Different Ending.. (2 True Stories)

We often hear about how a different attitude towards a situation will cause a different decision and subsequently different ending. Today I received a call requesting for legal assistance.

From the discussion, I understand from this person that a property developer owed him a few hundred thousands. It was commission owed to him for sales. He told me a part of it was properly documented while balance was not properly documented. He had discussed with lawyer, but he could not afford to pay the fee involved and therefore he could not proceed. This happened few years ago and because of failure to recover this amount, he had been miserable for the past few years and now facing financial difficulties.

COVID-19 Hospitalisation Coverage in Malaysia

With increasing Covid-19 cases in Malaysia and news of cases requiring hospitalisation, many started to wonder if their hospitalisation / medical insurance covers their medical bill in private hospital.

I have compiled a list of coverage among insurers in Malaysia for ease of reference. Besides the coverage provided for Covid-19 hospitalisation, we also included post vaccination coverage.

I also take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all the front liners and hope everyone of us work together to overcome this pandemic together! Stay Safe & Stay Healthy!

You can download the pdf below.

Covid-19-Hospitalisation-Coverage-List Download

Feel free to contact me for financial planning matters.. Email me : ask@ethanteh.com or find out more about my services.

Should We Combine Our M$ney After Our Marriage?

Congratulations! Since you are landing here, it is either you just got married or you are about to get married.

I believe whether to combine money or finances after marriage is a question to many of us now. This was not a question in the past when there was only single breadwinner in the family especially in the baby boomer generation. However, this is an important consideration for current generation where both partners are now working in the family.

Pro & Cons of Combining Money / Merging Finances after Marriage.

Pros

Easier – Managing one set of finances will definitely be easier and is less time consuming than managing two sets.
Greater resources to achieve financial goal – by combining income, we have greater resources that we can leverage on to achieve our financial goal.
Better ability to obtain loan – This is common in Malaysia as most couples jointly borrow money especially to qualify for housing loan.

CONS

Arguments – It is common for couple to argue over financial matters. When both combine their earnings and spending, one may not agree with another expenses.
No privacy – Honestly, most couples will still want to have certain level of privacy about one’s finances . It may also lead to suspicion if the partner does not completely share his or her finances.
Harder separation – Things are unpredictable. It will be hard to separate the money if unfortunately the couple decide to separate later or any other unfortunate events.

Actually there are few articles found about the pros and cons of combining money or merging finances after marriage. So, my intention is not to do further comparisons here. But, what I would actually like to draw attention to is another option, which is creating a 3rd account.

How about 3rd Account?

Instead of combining or separating money, maybe couple can think of creating a 3rd account. When we create this 3rd account, we must first:

Agree how each person contributes to this 3rd account.
Agree what spending can this 3rd account being used for.
Agree what is the financial goal that this 3rd account want to achieve together.
Agree that this account is jointly owned by both husband and wife.

Or, another way of managing 3rd account will be – fully combining our finances but each person is given a personal allowance.

Hope by now, you have an idea which may suit you better. Or, if you have other options, feel free to share with us.