Converted my CIMB Petronas Platinum Mastercard to CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum Mastercard

Recently, I have successfully converted my CIMB Petronas Platinum Mastercard to CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard, and the process is more straightforward than I thought.

I just made a call to CIMB credit card customer service center to request for the card convertion, and upon approval (1 week later), the conversion was done and I received my new CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard.

Sharing out my credit card conversion experience here:

• The credit balance of existing card will be transferred to the new card.
• The auto-payment arrangement (for utility, telco, etc.) with existing card is automatically carried across to the new card. The auto-payment seamlessly continues in the new card.
• The CIMB 0% Easy Pay instalment payment plan with the existing card seamlessly continues on the new card. 
• The CIMB Touch 'n Go Zing card that tied to the existing card will now be tied to the new card. I have successfully made an auto-reload to the Zing card just as before.
• The RM50 Government Service Tax period continues from the existing card, and will only be charged upon expiry.
• The new card has a new expiry date, which is later than the existing card.
• The CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard is capped with a maximum credit limit of RM20k only. If your existing card has a higher credit limit, it will be reduced to RM20k.

Conclusion: with CIMB, if you want to switch from one card to another, you don't need to cut your existing card and apply for the new card. Just make a call to the customer service center to request for the conversion. You will need to verify your identity over the phone with some questions and answers, but the good news is, you don't even need to fill in any application form for the new card. The auto-payment, Easy Pay instalment and Touch 'n Go Zing will also be automatically migrated to the new card without any hassle on your side.

PDF Split and Merge (PDFsam), free tool to split, merge, extract, rotate, reorder pages in PDF files

If you want to extract a few pages from a PDF file to another PDF file, or you want to insert a few PDF pages (such as the cover page) into an existing PDF file, what tool will you use to accomplish that?

There are several commercial tools available, which require you to buy a license. There are also several shareware tools and online tools which imposed a lot of limitation to the PDF file, such as with an accepted maximum page of a small number only.

I am using a free tools with the open source GPL2 license to do this. It is called PDF Split and Merge (PDFsam) Basic, developed by an Italian guy Andrea Vacondio and his team.

PDF Split and Merge Basic is able to:

• Split your PDF documents (into chapters, single pages, etc.).
• Merge many PDF documents or subsections of them.
• Extract sections of your document into a single PDF document.
• Mix alternate pages taken from two PDF documents in straight or reverse order into a single document.
• Rotate pages of the selected PDF documents.
• Visually reorder pages of a selected PDF document.
• Visually compose a document dragging pages from selected PDF documents.
• Save and load your workspace to automate your recurrent jobs.
• Manage PDFsam settings and set a workspace to load at start up.

PDFsam is running on Java, and is cross-platform. You can run it on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and the developer has also created a trimmed down version called PDF Merge for Android.

It has a simple and clean user interface, making it pretty easy to use.

You can download PDFsam here: http://www.pdfsam.org/download/

There is also an Enhanced version of PDFsam, which the source code is available. The developer has requested for a donation of any amount, and he will provide you with the compiled executable file and installer.

The additional functions in PDFsam Enhanced version are:

• Encrypt your PDF files (RC40 bits, RC128 bits, AES128 bits) and set permissions on them.
• Add a PDF document as front page or addendum (or both) to your PDF documents.
• Mix alternate pages taken from two PDF documents in straight or reverse order into a single document.
• Extract attached files from a PDF document.
• Decrypt your PDF files.
• Set viewer options to tell the viewer application how should open the document.
• Set the metadata of a document (author, title, subject and keywords).

EPF declared 6.35% dividend for FY2013

With the approval from Minister of Finance, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF, a.k.a. Kumpulan Wang Simpanan Pekerja, KWSP)  declared on 16 February 2014 for the dividend rate of financial year ending 31 December 2013 to be 6.35%, representing a dividend payout of RM31.20 billion to its members, up 13.66% over the RM27.45 billion paid in FY2012.

EPF gross investment income from Malaysian Government Securities & Equivalents and from Loans & Bonds have decreased from previous year, while the income from Equities, Money Market Instruments and Real Estate & Infrastructure have increased.

 As the EPF membership rose to more than 13 million, a total of RM4.91 billion was required to pay every 1% dividend rate for 2013. This was 10.06% higher compared with RM4.46 billion paid for every 1% dividend rate for 2012. The amount needed to pay a 1% dividend would continue to grow between 8%-9% annually.

The Fund’s total overseas exposure constituted 20.97% of its total investment assets based on book value as at end December 2013, registering a rise from 16.98% the year before. During the year under review, the EPF had outsourced USD2.20 billion to the external fund managers for global equity mandates, while a total of RM2.25 billion and RM850 million were injected  into domestic fixed income and equity mandates respectively.