Malaysia Money Matters

Well, the shoe has finally dropped - the expected RPGT has been increased to 30% for sales within the first 3 years of property ownership, dropping to 20% in year 4, then 15% in year 5 and then back to 0% from year 6 onwards for Malaysian citizens - the 30% applies for the full 5 years for foreign owned properties. A flat 5% will still be imposed for property gains made by businesses after the 5th year. Means that those who only just bought properties to flip within the past 2 years or so (given the lead time to sell a property) would be affected immediately - unless the gain itself is large enough to compensate. But of course, human nature being what it is, the 30% will be a dampener for sure as sellers would want to maximise their returns. Only thing is pity those who may be in a desperate position, maybe they need money for something else and have to sell a property - then they'll be hit quite badly with this. Moving forward, would this ease speculative buying? I don...

A little bird told me that Bank Negara is adamant about pushing down the merchant interchange fee by as much as 60% i.e. from 1.2% down to 0.5%! The banks are obviously not happy about it because it is going to be an immediate hit on revenues. However, for those banks who are big on merchant acquisition, the impact may not be as bad IF this drop in rates brings about a large growth in volume due to wider acceptance. So the volume growth off-sets the drop in earnings per transaction. To me, this is a good thing because one of the resistant points towards more cash-less transactions is the merchant rate. Retailer don't want to accept cards for small transactions because they contend (which I think is bullshit) that they don't make money off these. Please, bitch, you shouldn't be in business if that is the case. Unfortunately, this move is one-sided in that it is only about the MDR but the majority of people out there don't even have a credit card (like 70% of the ...