Clearing the doubt on My First Home Scheme a.k.a. Skim Rumah Pertamaku (SRP)

My First Home Scheme (a.k.a. Skim Rumah Pertamaku, SRP) was just launched by the government of Malaysia, aimed to help younger segments to buy their first home.

Without the scheme, most bank only offer up to a maximum of 90% financing for housing loan, and the home buyer need to prepare for the first 10% of the house, partially paid as the down payment or booking fee before S&P agreement is signed, with the rest payable within a very short period of time right after S&P agreement signed.

Under the scheme, mortgage borrower can obtain 100% housing loan from the participating banks. Cagamas SRP Berhad (a unit under Bank Negara) will guarantee the bank on financing above the 90% level. Borrower is liable to the bank for the full financing amount (up to 100%), and the guarantee indemnifies the bank for any loss incurred as a result of financing above 90%.

Here are some of the information I gathered about this My First Home Scheme:

• Borrower must be an employee in the private sector (not applicable to self-employed, non-employed or government servant)
• Borrower must be employed for more than 6 months with the same employer (not applicable for employee still under probation period)
• Borrower must be a Malaysian
• Borrower gross monthly income must not exceed RM3000
• Borrower's age must not exceed 35 years old
• The property must be a residential unit
• The property can be completed or being developed
• The property can be from developer or from existing owner
• The property must be the first property under the borrower's name
• The property must be occupied by the borrower (must not be rented out or keep vacant)
• Cost of property within the range of RM100k to RM220k
• Not applicable to refinancing existing property
• Available for both conventional and Islamic housing loans
• Not available for flexible home loan or any housing loan with redrawable features
• Compulsory fire insurance/takaful. Depends on the bank if MRTA/MRTT/MLTA is also compulsory or not
• Maximum financing tenure is 30 years
• Monthly financing repayment amount should not be more than 1/3 of borrower’s monthly gross income. This may be increased to a maximum of 1/2 of borrower's monthly gross income, subjected to approval from the bank.
• Joint application is only applicable to family member only (spouse or siblings)
• All applicants in joint application must meet all the requirements above, including citizenship, first home, employment, age, income criteria, etc.

Participating banks of this My First Home Scheme include:

• Affin Bank
• Alliance Bank
• Ambank
• Bank Islam
• Bank Muamalat
• CIMB Bank
• EON Bank
• Hong Leong Bank
• Maybank
• OCBC Bank
• Public Bank
• RHB
• Standard Chartered
• UOB

Click here to go to the official website of My First Home Scheme.

Disclaimer: The above information is gathered from several reliable sources. I have no guarantee nor liability on its total correctness. Please verify the information by yourself.

Earth Hour @ 8.30pm this Saturday 26 March 2011 - go beyond the hour

Time is moving fast, and another year has past since I last posted about Earth Hour. Yes, it is back again to be happened on this coming Saturday 26 March 2011. The time remains fixed at 8.30pm.

This year, the theme is about "going beyond the hour". Well, this is not talking about switching off your light for more than 1 hour. This is about using the Earth Hour event to commit to a meaningful action, be it big or small, that will sustain for the future of our planet earth. And this echoes well to what I wrote on my Earth Hour article here last year.

Note that this year, there is a slight change to the Earth Hour logo to reflect the theme. Compare with the logo in my previous Earth Hour article and you'll see the different.

You can share with the whole world about your action of going beyond the hour here.

Bank Negara imposes higher income requirement for credit card holders

Bank Negara has just imposed some new measures on credit cards, with objective "to promote prudent financial management and responsible business practices".

Now, you need to have a minimum income of RM24,000 per annum in order to be eligible to apply for new credit card, compared with the previous RM18,000 per annum.

In addition, if your income is less than RM36,000 per annum, you can only hold credit cards from a maximum of 2 issuers, and your maximum combined credit limit per issuer shall not exceed 2x your monthly income.

This will affect at least 50% of existing credit card holders in Malaysia, as "currently 50% of 3.2 million credit card holders have income below RM36,000".

I think this is a good measure, as long as the merchants also accept for alternative card payment mode, such as debit cards, charge cards (American Express, Diners Club, ...) or ATM cards (MEPS, e-POS, ...).

After all, credit card is meant for convenient to make cashless payment, and not for making spending that we can't affort to repay in near future.

There will be tighter security for credit card transactions too.

Effective 1 January 2012, transaction alerts via Short Messaging Service (SMS) will be implemented by card issuers for their card holders after transactions are performed. But who will bear the cost of the SMS sending? I hope that it is not the card holders.

On top of that,  Personal Identification Number (PIN) verification for all card transactions will be imposed from 1 January 2015 onwards. This is a good measure, especially for unattended transactions such as petrol payment at the pump station. However, I wonder how this is going to apply for credit cards issued overseas. We do have many expatriates and tourists holding foriegn credit cards!

So, apart from the credit card holders, these new measures will most probably also affect:

• CIMB Direct Access - which target to fresh graduates.
• Mobile operators - they will have increased income in SMS soon.