Financial Management Archives - Ethan Teh ~ witty Financial Planner

ChatGPT: One of the hottest topic these few days.

Is AI ready to take over human job?

I tried it out last night. It was really interesting and amazed me to certain level. I even tried it with Financial Planning topic, and, at least, I believe that ChatGPT is able to pass the exam for Registered Financial Planner (RFP) or Chartered Financial Planner (CFP).

What are the potential job to be taken over by AI?

There are certain jobs and tasks that may be automated or partially automated by AI and language models like ChatGPT in the future. Some examples include:

Data entry and data processing: AI models can process large amounts of data faster and more accurately than humans, making them ideal for tasks like data entry and data processing.
Customer service: AI-powered chatbots can handle simple customer service inquiries, freeing up human customer service representatives to handle more complex issues.
Content generation: AI models like ChatGPT can be trained to generate articles, reports, and other written content, potentially reducing the need for human writers in certain contexts.
Translation: AI models can be trained for language translation tasks, potentially reducing the demand for human translators in certain industries.
Financial analysis: AI models can be trained to analyze financial data and provide insights and recommendations, potentially reducing the need for human financial analysts in certain contexts.

It’s important to note, however, that while AI models have the potential to automate certain tasks, they are not expected to replace human workers entirely. Instead, they are likely to augment human abilities and allow us to focus on more creative and high-level tasks.

How can AI such as ChatGPT assist financial planner?

AI models such as ChatGPT can assist financial planners in several ways:

Data analysis: ChatGPT can process large amounts of financial data and provide insights and recommendations based on that data. For example, it can analyze market trends and provide financial planners with information on the best investment opportunities.
Report generation: ChatGPT can be trained to generate financial reports and summaries, potentially reducing the time and effort required for financial planners to create these reports themselves.
Portfolio optimization: ChatGPT can assist financial planners in portfolio optimization by analyzing a client’s financial situation and recommending the best investment strategies based on that analysis.
Customer service: ChatGPT can be used to answer simple customer inquiries and provide information on financial products and services, freeing up financial planners to focus on more complex issues.
Risk management: ChatGPT can assist financial planners in risk management by analyzing market data and identifying potential risks to a client’s portfolio.

It’s important to note that AI models like ChatGPT are only as good as the information they have been trained on, and they cannot replace human judgement and experience. Financial planners should use AI models as a tool to assist in their work, rather than relying on them solely.

Conclusion

Answer to both questions above were generated by ChatGPT. Could it be ChatGPT is trying to convince us that it will not take away our job while we continue to develop them?

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.

Time Value of Money

What will be your decision?

To start our discussion, we shall first visit the concept of Time Value of Money.

Time Value of Money is a concept rather important for us to understand inflation and investment. It is one of the useful tool to make investment decision and also to correctly calculate the real return of an investment.

One of the important parameter in TVM calculation will be the potential earning capacity. Interest rate for fixed deposit account is one of the typical example of potential earning capacity and it is deemed risk free.

For option 1, there will be no calculation involved. For option 2, for each RM 100,000 to be received in the future will be equivalent to a value today (PV). When we sum up all of these, we will get an equivalent value today.

From the above calculation, we can know that the present value for option 2 will be equivalent to RM 557,970. This is higher than option 1, therefore we can conclude that based on 3% p.a. interest rate, Option 2 is the better option.

The decision will be different when the interest rate is 8%. From above table, the total present value will be RM 499,271 for option 2. This is lower that RM 500,000. Therefore, Option 1 is now the better option.