BNM to issue new series of Malaysian coins in 2012

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is issuing commemorative coins in the denominations of 5 sen, 10 sen, 20 sen and 50 sen, to mark the new 3rd Series of the Malaysian coins which will be available for circulation early 2012.

This series of new coins are smaller and lighter, making its more user-friendly for the public. The yellow and silver coloured coins and the edge designs enable the public and also the visually impaired to identify and distinguish the different denominations.

The new series of coins embodies the latest advancements in minting technology which incorporates improved counterfeit resistance security features. The new metal alloy used for minting has enhanced durability against wear and corrosion.

The alloy used in 50 sen coins is Nickel Brass Clad Copper,  in 20 sen coins is Nickel Brass, in 10 sen and 5 sen coins is Stainless Steel.

This new series of coins are legal tender and will co-circulate with the existing series. The existing series will be gradually phased out.

Vendors of cash handling machines are given 6 months to calibrate their machines to ensure convenience for the use of the new coins.

Find out if your smartphone is installed with the infamous Carrier IQ

Nowadays, one of the hot topics among the smartphone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, ...) users is about Carrier IQ.

Carrier IQ is spy agent pre-installed in certain smartphone that can capture information about the phone numbers you are dialing, your GPS location, the webpages you have visited with your mobile browser, etc. Those information are sent back via the Internet without your notice, invading into your privacy.

Carrier IQ has been reported to be found in iPhones, and it is told that you can disable its information sending action with About > Diagnostics & Usage > Don't Send.

There are multiple vendors and multiple models for Android phone, and not all of them are affected. If you have an Android phone, good news is that now there are several free tools available in the Market for you to find out whether your Android phone is installed with the infamous Carrier IQ or not.

Just open the Market app, and search for the keywords "carrier iq detector" and you will get a list of the detector tools for Android.

Use them to check on your Android phone. You can install multiple of them to assure that your phone is not affected. Once you have done the checking, you can go ahead to uninstall the Carrier IQ detection tools.

If you find Carrier IQ in your Android phone, removal will be a bit tricky, as you need root access. There are apps such as Logging Checker (a.k.a. Logging Test App) that claims to be able to help you eliminate Carrier IQ in your phone.

Understanding Advance Instalment and Capital Repayment in OCBC Bank home loan prepayment mode

OCBC Bank in Malaysia has been giving quite a competitive housing loan facility since they introduced the so-called semi-flexi scheme.

Unlike the fully flexible home loan provided by some other banks, this OCBC semi-flexi home loan is more difficult to understand, more troublesome to manage, and also introduces cost and constraint when come to excess payment (a.k.a. prepayment) redraw.

Anyhow, many people still consider OCBC semi-flexi home loan, as they give among the lowest interest rate, highest possible margin of financing, longest possible serving term, and short lock-in period.

If you were to take up this OCBC semi-flexi home loan, you need to understand about their definition and operation of Advance Instalment and Capital Repayment, which are the 2 options of prepayment for you to put in excess money into your loan account in order to reduce the outstanding balance, and therefore will reduce the overall interest paid as well as shorten the overall loan tenure.

These 2 prepayment modes are clearly spelled out in the Main Terms & Conditions document that come together with your home loan offer letter. I'll summarize it here.

Both Advance Instalment and Capital Repayment will reduce the outstanding balance, and therefore will immediately help you to save on interest charged the next day onwards (since the loan is on daily rests). If you have the current version of the Main Terms & Conditions document, it is stated in Clause 6.6 (a) in that document.

Advance Instalment:

• Non-redrawable. Once you banked in, you cannot take it out from your account.
• You can use it to automatically set off future monthly instalment, provided there is enough Advance Instalment in your account for the deduction. This is useful if you are going away to oversea for a long period, and might not be convenient to serve your monthly home loan repayment for quite some times.
• Can make payment with cash (over the counter), cheque, ATM machine, inter-bank transfer, etc.

Capital Repayment:

• Redrawable to your saving or current account with OCBC Bank, subject to the terms and conditions.
• You still need to serve your monthly home loan repayment on time as usual. The automatic set off mechanism does not apply here.
• Can make payment with cash (over the counter) and cheque only.

The redrawal terms and conditions for Capital Repayment is typically like this:

• Redrawing must be made at the OCBC branch.
• Need to submit the Redrawing Notice to OCBC 3 days before the redrawing occur.
• RM10 will be charged for each redraw.
• Only 1 redrawing per day.
• Redrawing must be in multiples of RM1000.
• Minimum redrawing amount is RM5000.