Now you can check your Malaysian GE-15 actual polling location, channel and serial number online through MySPRSemak

Earlier on, all Malaysian citizens who are eligible to vote in the General Election (all citizens of age 18 years old and above should be automatically registered in the current system) can check for their election voter registration status online in MySPRSemark which is available in the form of:

• Website
• Android app
• Apple iOS app

Now, additional information is already available in the same MySPRSemak online, which includes:

• Actual polling location (usually, a nearby school or community hall)
• Voting channel
• Serial number in the registration book
• Date and time of the 15th General Election (GE-15) of Malaysia
• Suggested time to go to the polling location to cast your vote

Eligible voters are advised to record down your voting channel and serial number to facilitate faster checking process in the polling location during the GE-15 day, either in your handphone or on a piece of paper, and also don't forget to bring along your MyKad to collect your voting tickets.

For the states that are having national and state general elections on the same day, you will get 2 voting tickets in different colour, one for national GE and another for state GE.

Free online website to generate hi-res colorful QR codes with customized design

If you need to generate a QR code, for whatever reason, what tools do you normally use?

I have been using QRCode Monkey for quite some times, and I find this free online QR-code generating website is still among the best, as it is free of charge and feature-rich.

It allows you to generate QR codes of your own style and design. Your design can be colourful too.

Your QR code can be of high resolution until 2000x2000 px, which is good enough for most printing use.

You can save your QR code in the format of PNG file, as well as in vector graphics of SVG, PDF or EPS.

It even provides free API for your application to generate QR codes remotely.

If you need more advanced QR code functioning, you can also sign up for Pro account for free. That will enable you to generate QR code that integrates with various online application to do more wonders.

How to find a new job in IT nowadays

As one of the many IT professionals, do you feel that you are not that aware of your value in the market and do not know how to sell yourself? Are you just don't like doing sales?

It is especially difficult for those who were last interviewed quite a long time ago. Since then, the rules of the game in the job market have changed significantly.

The IT job market, in general, is somewhat different from other markets:

• A very large online presence of job seekers and companies.
• Very fast distribution of information about negative and positive developments.
• In many specialties, demand exceeds supply, based on which companies are adjusting HR policies and ways to attract/motivate employees.
• The too-rapid growth of salaries, if compared with other spheres.

At the start, it's important to let everyone know about you.

Only 20-30% of jobs are posted on job search sites.

These days, candidates respond to ads rather infrequently. Published jobs are only a small part of the job market.

The bulk of the work is with passive candidates. Hiring managers and recruiters scout the internet daily for the right people. To help them find you, fill out social profiles and clearly state what you're looking for.

LinkedIn - The primary job and professional search platform these days.

• Specify the technology stack you've used to work with. To screen out the unwanted jobs, you need to clearly state your job title in the Title, mention your stack or programming language. For example: Frontend React Developer, Fullstack.Net Programmer, Senior Java Engineer, Java Team Lead. Then you will have fewer unnecessary offers from recruiters.
• Be sure to write technical skills right in the About field. This will help you get a clear idea of your skills. Do not write long sentences. Give the reader a clear text structure about your skills. For example: programming languages, frameworks, databases.
• Describe in detail your work experience. Under each job, clarify the essence of the project/product, your role in the project and tasks, technology stack. A common mistake candidates make is to limit their experience description to the job title, time on the job, and company name. All the information a recruiter needs is omitted.
• Certificates by profession, courses are taken, recommendations from colleagues and clients - the more of these in your profile, the higher the level of trust for you. Certificates must be relevant and up-to-date. Things change rapidly in IT: it makes sense to expose information within 5, at most, up to 10 years. Certificates and course completion certificates are often not a requirement in the hiring process. However, constantly improving one's skills and qualifications, bringing programs and courses to completion, and being result-oriented will set a candidate apart from the crowd.
• Don't forget to ask for a line or two of recommendations from colleagues and supervisors.
• LinkedIn has special setting called #OpenToWork you need to turn on so recruiters can find you. 

Job Search Sites and Online Resumes

It's a good idea to upload your resume to popular job search sites, such as Jooble which has job coverage in over 70 countries around the world.

But keep in mind that not all firms have access to a resume database of different sites. By creating a resume on each of them, you broaden your search/resume for employers. The principle of describing technical skills and experience is similar. Put technical skills summary at the beginning, in the most prominent place. Describe your work experience in detail.

Try to avoid writing a monolithic text and using too long sentences. No one will read it. Make the description of your experience user-friendly, clearly structured, and understandable.

Add a link to your portfolio

If you're a developer or automation QA, upload samples of your decent code to Github and put a link to it along with your contact info on your CV and LinkedIn profile - this will help in the evaluation process of your technical skills since most employers are looking at what you really can do. Code samples say a lot more about you than thousands of words on a resume. Especially in the case of juniors. A designer or web developer without a portfolio looks really weird. 

If you don't have any projects to show, or have something very old that doesn't reflect your current level, it's better to put them away and not show them to anyone.

Google yourself for a job.

You already know that only 20-30% of market jobs are posted on job search sites. So be proactive in your job search - search LinkedIn for job offers, recruiters, and managers using keywords like: We are hiring, Looking for Java, C# developers.

Send out applications and resumes, and write to them directly, all the while showing your interest. Write about why you are a good candidate and what makes you different. Stay tuned for news about startups that are invested in, or companies that report good business results and expansion plans.

Visit IT companies, subscribe to their social media accounts and newsletters and stay up-to-date on their news.

Widen your search

Write to your former colleagues or ask your acquaintances. Personal networking is still one of the most effective job searches today.

Subscribe to Telegram channels and Facebook groups where job ads are posted. You can also make use of Jooble to have a centralized access to job opportunities posted in LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Craiglist, Glassdoor, Indeed, Jobrapido, Jora, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Online stock filtering and screening by inventory turnover and receivables turnover

Cash flow is critical in running all businesses. Companies without healthy cash flow are very likely to go into financial trouble sooner or later.

In normal business operations, there are several factors that have great impact to the cash flow of the company, including:

• How fast can the company sell out its goods?
• How fast can the company collect the full payment from its customers?

The first factor can be rephrased in layman terms as "how fast can the company make money through its operations?", which is no doubt, the faster the better. This can be reviewed by its inventory turnover rate.

When the company's goods are stored in the warehouse or display rack, there is storage cost involved. The value of the goods could also be depreciated as they are approaching their shelflife expiry, or when newer goods are introduced to the market which becomes more attractive to the customers. Most importantly, the goods can only bring revenue to the company after they are sold (or leased) to customers.

The formula to calculate inventory turnover is:

Inventory turnover = Cost of goods sold / Average value of inventory

Low inventory turnover rate indicates:

• Weak sales
• Over-stocking (too much goods produced or brought in)

This can be resulting from poor marketing and/or poor sales to clear out the inventory effectively. This can also be due to lack of customers' purchasing interest to the goods, which could be:

• Price is set too high
• Product quality is too low
• Low demand

High inventory turnover rate indicates:

• Strong sales
• Insufficient inventory (not a good sign)

This can be resulting from effective marketing and/or aggressive sales. This can also be due to:

• Price is set too low
• Product is good that customers are willing to pay for its price
• High demand

Even if a company achieved a consistently high inventory turnover rate, its cash flow is yet affected by its receivables turnover rate.

There are generally 3 ways a business collect money from its customers:

• Advanced (prepaid) collection - customer paid before receiving the goods.
• Cash term collection - customer pay upon goods delivery.
• Credit term collection - customer is given interest-free period to make payment within a timeline (normally 7-days, 14-days, 30-days, 60-days, etc.) after receiving the goods.

The money that customers owe to the company, normally due to credit terms, is called receivables. It is a common sense that high receivables will tighten up the company's cash flow, and, on the other hand, advanced payment collection will have positive impact on the company's cash flow.

The common formula for receivables turnover is:

Receivables turnover = Total credit sales / Average accounts receivables

However, the formula used in Rakuten Trade Stock Screener is:

Receivables turnover = Total revenue / Average accounts receivables

This could be due to the difficulty in separating the credit sales from the revenue with the financial information made available to the investors.

A high receivables turnover rate indicates that the company is effective in collecting back the money owed by customers. A low receivables turnover rate is normally a red alert to investors and bankers.

Here is an example to perform stock filtering and screening in Rakuten Trade based on the 2 turnover rates as mentioned above.

Login to Rakuten Trade online trading website, select the Stock Screener menu, add a new filtering criterion, and select Receivables Turnover (%). Set its minimum to 10%.

Then, add in another filtering criterion Inventory Turnover (%). Set its minimum to 10%.

You should be able to get a list of around 40-50 matching stock counters on your screen at this moment.

Note that inventory turnover is generally industry-related, and you should compare the inventory turnover rate of a company with its peers in the same industry. For example, we expect a high inventory turnover rate in the FMCG industry.

If you don't have a Rakuten Trade account to access to the Stock Screener above, you can use this link to open a new Rakuten Trade account for free, including no charge for opening new CDS account. By opening account with the link, you can get 500 RT Points within 30 days upon your account activation. Beside that, if you start your trading within the first 10 business days after account activation, your first online trading brokerage fee will be rebated as additional RT Points as well.

Online stock filtering and screening by profit margins and profit growth

Beside analysing stock counters investability using Return of Equity (ROE) and Return of Assets (ROA), it is also imperative in fundamental analysis to evaluate the business profitability of the stock counters. This can be achieved by looking into their profit margins and profit growth rate.

Operating profit is the profit (i.e. revenue minus the cost of goods sold) derived from the company's core business operations. Operating profit margin is the percentage of operating profit portion divided by total revenue.

A company with higher operating profit margin usually has more room to give discount (i.e. temporary lowering the profit margin in order to secure a deal), and therefore more financially healthy.

Companies which are able to maintain a high operating profit margin all the time are usually having high competition barrier, protecting them from being forced into price war with competitors. 

The operating profit margin is usually going along with the industry. Industries with generally high profit margin including high technology, cosmetics, premium consumer brands, etc. If a company's operating profit margin is above its industry average, it indicates that its management team is more capable in bringing in business profit than its industry peers.

Pretax profit is the profit that takes into account both operating income and non-operating income. Examples of non-operating income including investment gains, forex gains, profit from selling out fixed assets, etc. Pretax profit is also known as earnings before interest and tax (EBIT).

Usually, a company will have pretax profit margin that is slightly lower than its operating profit margin. If its pretax profit margin is higher than its operating profit margin, it indicates that the company is making more profit from non-operating revenue than its core business revenue.

Here is an example to perform stock filtering and screening in Rakuten Trade based on profit margins.

Login to Rakuten Trade online trading website, select the Stock Screener menu, add a new filtering criterion, and select Operating Margin (%). Set its minimum to 35%.

Then, add in another filtering criterion Pretax Margin (%). Set its minimum to 30%.

Beside having good profit margins, we might also want to see the company's profit growth year by year. Therefore, select the 3rd filtering criterion Pretax Profit Growth Rate (%) and set its minimum to 10%.

You will instantly get the list of matching stocks on your screen, which is around 40 to 50 counters at the time being.

Combined with our 2 filters of ROE and ROA, the list will be left with only around 10 counters.

You will see some rubber glove counters in the list. The rubber glove industry has been enjoying an exceptional good profit margin over the past 2 years. The question you need to ask as an investor is that: does this good profit margin sustainable, at least for another upcoming year?

Note that companies with low profit margin does not necessary mean that their industry is not profitable, provided that they are able to generate their profit by high volume of sales. Example of such industries including grocery trading, essential food trading, etc.

If you don't have a Rakuten Trade account to access to the Stock Screener above, you can use this link to open a new Rakuten Trade account for free, including no charge for opening new CDS account. By opening account with the link, you can get 500 RT Points within 30 days upon your account activation. Beside that, if you start your trading within the first 10 business days after account activation, your first online trading brokerage fee will be rebated as additional RT Points as well.

Online stock filtering and screening by ROE and ROA

In fundamental analysis, Return of Equity (ROE) and Return of Assets (ROA) are among the most important indicators used to evaluate the investability of targetted stock counters.

There are generally 4 components that make up the shareholders' equity:

• The shares that are sold out to the shareholders, and tradable in the market.
• The shares that are repurchased by the company and kept as treasury shares.
• Company's profit that is reinvested into the business as retained earnings.
• Additional paid-in capital pumped into the company by its shareholders.

In short, shareholders' equity is the money that the company's shareholder had invested into its business, together with the retained earnings from the company's business profit.

ROE is therefore a measurement to evaluate how effective is the company's management team in managing the business and bringing in annual profit to the company.

ROE = Net Profit / Shareholder Equity

The main different between ROE and ROA is that, ROE does not take into account the financial leverage or debt of the company, whereas ROA includes it.

As you might have aware of the basic financial equation as illustrated in the diagram below:

Total Assets = Shareholders' Equity + Total Liabilities

The company needs assets to run its business. The assets can be funded either from shareholders' equity, or from 3rd parties (non-shareholders) as liabilities, for example, in the form of financing loans.

ROA is a measurement to evaluate how effective is the company's management team in utilizing the company's assets to make profit.

ROA = Net Profit / Total Assets

ROA = Net Profit / (Shareholder Equity + Liabilities)

For those companies that are in net cash position (without any debts), its ROE = ROA.

For those companies with liabilities, its ROE is normally higher than ROA, as assets are increased by taking debt.

As a benchmark, if the ROA is lower than bond return rate or even fixed deposit return rate, the shareholders might as well put their money (and borrowed money) in those low-risk money-generating financial instruments, rather than in the business, which is more risky.

When picking target stocks for investment from thousands of counters in the stock market, one of the initial fundamental shortlisting methods is to filter the target stocks to those that meeting the criteria of ROE > 20% and ROA > 15%.

In Rakuten Trade, you can easily do your shortlisting with just a few mouse clicks.

You just need to login to Rakuten Trade online trading website, select the Stock Screener menu, add a new filtering criterion, and select ROE (%).

After that, do the same to select another filtering criterion ROA (%).

Set the minimum of ROE to 20%, and the minimum of ROA to 15%.

You will instantly get the list of matching stocks on your screen, which is around 30 to 40 counters at the time being.

If you don't have a Rakuten Trade account to access to the Stock Screener above, you can use this link to open a new Rakuten Trade account for free, including no charge for opening new CDS account. By opening account with the link, you can get 500 RT Points within 30 days upon your account activation. Beside that, if you start your trading within the first 10 business days after account activation, your first online trading brokerage fee will be rebated as additional RT Points as well.

Online free personality test to get accurate description of who you are and why you do things the way you do

Since the dawn of time, humans have drawn up schematics to describe and categorize our personalities. 

From the 4 temperaments of the ancient civilizations (sanguine, choleric, melancholic & phlegmatic) to the latest advances in psychology, we have been driven to fit the variables and complexities of human personality into well-defined models.

The 16Personalities website developed by a small group of enthusiastic researchers in Cambridge UK, NERIS Analytics Ltd, provides a free online personality testing tool for all of us to understand ourselves better just by answering a few questions and get a pretty detail result about our personality type, role (i.e. our goals, interests, and preferred activities) and strategy (i.e. our preferred ways of doing things and achieving goals).

The analytical model used is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which in turn based on Carl Gustav Jung's theory of psychological types. It also incorporated frameworks from other renowned researchers, including Socionics, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Linda Berens’ Interaction Styles, etc.

You can click here to visit the 16Personalities website and press on the Take the Test button there, to start your personality test and get your instant result report.

You will find yourself in one of the 4 roles of analysts, diplomats, sentinels, or explorers.

Each of the 4 roles is grouped by 4 personalities respectively. And each of the 16 personalities can be further analyzed into 2 different strategies. Therefore, there are altogether 32 strategies available in this model.

If you are curious about the statistical information of the personality of the people around the world which has taken this test, which can be further zoomed in to regional and country level, here is the link to show the big data result.

How to instantly make the background of photo & video transparent

A company called Kaleido AI GmbH in Vienna, Austria has successfully made use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology to effectively remove the background from the main object(s) in any photo and even video, awesomely making the background transparent, without the hassle of using any greenscreen.

In most cases, the conversion can be instantly completed within a second, and the result is impressively promising!

The product/service that makes photo background transparent is Remove.bg. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux as a software, very useful to perform bulk images conversion, which you can download from this webpage: https://www.remove.bg/windows-mac-linux

It also has an Android app which you can click here to download and install it from Google Play Store.

Alternatively, you can also upload your photo to their website, just by a simple drag-and-drop action, to perform online conversion. The URL is: https://www.remove.bg/

Remove.bg provides API for integration, and its plugins are available for Photoshop, Zapier, Integromat, Figma, WooCommerce, Drupal, Sketch, and even Visual Studio Code.

Remove.bg sells credits for image conversion, 1 credit for 1 image conversion. If you don't need high resolution converted image, the converted preview image up to 0.25 megapixels is free of charge.

Below are some examples to give you an idea about what can be expected from Remove.bg background removal service.

Original photo:

Background removed:

Original photo:

Background removed:

Original photo:

Background removed:

Kaleido AI GmbH's A.I. technology for background removal is not only applicable to images, but also can be used for videos as well.

Currently, only online conversion is available for videos. The service name is called UnScreen, and its URL is: https://www.unscreen.com/

Below is a sample video provided in UnScreen website to see it in action.

Reliable online shop to buy disposable 3-ply non-woven face masks and disposable plastic gloves

It is a crucial practice to maintain good hygiene during current critical time against the COVID-19 corona virus.

To prevent infection, it is essential to wear a 3-ply non-woven face mask whenever we go outdoor, or whenever there is any sick family member in the house.

As the global demand for face masks is very high at this moment, there are not much stocks available in the market. Worse still, there exists quite a lot of scam face mask sellers in the Internet trying to cheat the buyers.

As such, it is very important to know where can you buy face masks online of:

• with reasonable price
• of reliable quality
• from trustworthy seller
• that promised to deliver to you within a short period of time

One of the online shop that fulfil all of the above requirements is the online JDX Presto Concept Store in PrestoMall.

JDX Presto Concept Store is a renown O2O store with a 50,000 square-feet physical shop located in Quill City Mall. PrestoMall, formerly known as 11Street, is one of the larger and popular online marketplace in Malaysia.

The URL to buy disposable 3-ply non-woven face masks from them is:
https://www.prestomall.com/productdetail/3ply-disposable-face-mask-50pcs-3-69407527

 

 



According to a research done by University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), the COVID-19 virus can stay active for more than 3 days on certain surfaces including plastic and stainless steel.

If you touch on the following (but not limited to) objects, you might carry the bacteria and virus on their surface to your hand, which might include the COVID-19 virus as well:

• Petrol pump
• Lift buttons
• ATM machine buttons
• Door access keypad buttons
• Door handle
• Bus / train handle bar or handle strap
• Shopping trolley cart handle
• Fingerprint scanner
• ... and many more

Then, the bacteria and virus would spread out from your hand to all the other surfaces that you touch on, and might also enter into your own body if you touched your eye, nose, mouth, body wound, etc.

Therefore, it is highly advisable to wear a disposable plastic glove before you touch on any of such objects, especially in public places, and immediately throw away the glove into dustbin after use.

You can buy the disposable plastic gloves from Shopee. According to my own experience, the plastic gloves arrived at my doorstep within 24 hour of purchase.

The URL that I bought my disposable plastic gloves is:
https://shopee.com.my/product/12837901/986704474

The same shop also sell alcohol-free hand sanitizer spray as well.

Take care. If you find this article useful, please bookmark and share its link to your friends.

Investing in non-listed growth company via equity crowdfunding

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) is something new but yet not so new in Malaysia investment market.

It provides a Securities Commission regulated platform that allows start-up companies and SME to get new capital fund through small equity investments from the public crowd by using approved online platform.

On the other hand, it provides a governed platform that allows general public to gain access to invest in share equity of non-listed companies that are on the growing track, and has the potential to become a unicorn that brings in multi-fold returns.

Previously, investment in such early stage equities of those non-listed companies is a privilege to sophisticated investors (a.k.a. rich people with millions of personal investment fund), private equity funds, angel funds, etc. Equity crowdfunding enables ordinary retail investors to participate in investment to those companies with a more affordable, smaller amount of money, as low as a few hundred ringgit.

The main advantages, which are also the disadvantages at the same time, of ECF are that:

• The selling price of the new shares issued during a crowdfunding campaign is fixed. Even though it might be very hot-selling, the price will not go up, and even though it might be having very few investors, the price will also not go down. The price is also not affected by general investment market sentiment, or socio-political affairs. This is of advantage to the investors, as the price is solely based on fundamentals. Major events such as Wuhan virus outbreak will not shaken the offering price.
• The shares purchased (regardless ordinary shares or preference shares) are not volatile and quite hard to resell to the other investors, until the company is public listed or there is big fund that makes offering to buy the shares from existing shareholders.

Today, there are altogether 10 Securities Commission approved equity crowdfunding platforms. Those platforms are tasked as a middleman to help start-ups or SME wanting to finance their business growth through equity crowdfunding by issuing new shares to reach their investors crowd, at the same time to help the investors to perform preliminary filtering and due-diligent to the companies to ensure their pitching and information provided are genuine and meet certain level of integrity.

Among the 10 approved ECF platforms in Malaysia, Crowplus is the first mover, but it seems that they had not gained much advantage of being the first mover. PitchIN is a market leader whereby many companies who seek for ECF and also many investors who want to look for non-listed growth companies investment are putting their trust on PitchIN. MyStartr has been an aggressive challenger that has gained traction in the Chinese speaking community beside the English speaking community.

MyStartr just launched their ECF platform in December 2019. So far, there are 2 successfully funded companies while others are on their way to reach their minimal funding target.

The first successfully funded company is Biztory which raised more than a million ringgit capital through ECF on MyStartr, and they did it within a very short period of 8 days only. Currently, funding activity of this company in MyStartr has stopped.

The second successfully funded company is Rtist, which already raised more than their minimum target of RM200,000. Currently their funding activity in MyStartr is still ongoing towards their ultimate target of 1 million ringgit. Therefore, you can still participating in their growth by becoming one of their minority shareholders through ECF, and you can make your investment there by using your credit card. The Rtist ECF closing date for this round is set on 15 February 2020.

Interest rate reduced, bond price to rise further

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has just reduced the overnight policy rate (OPR) by 25 basis points from 3.00% to 2.75% on 22 January 2020. This is back to the rate 9 years ago at 2011.

Below is the chart of historical OPR rate over the years.

In general, a reduction in interest rate will have a positive impact to bond price (and therefore, the bond funds as well), and vice-versa. OPR and bond price are having an inverse relationship to each other.

This is because most of the bonds are paying fixed interest rate. When the general financial interest rates fall, the bond's fixed interest rate will become more attractive to investors; when the general financial interest rates rise, the bond's fixed interest rate will, in turn, become less attractive.

The Opus Income Plus Fund (IPF) has been performing pretty well recently (refer to the chart below). The reduction in OPR is expected to further boost up its performance.

Click here to learn about how to invest in Opus IPF with 0% sales charge.

Using Boost e-wallet to invest in Opus unit trust funds with 0% sales charge

Opus Asset Management has a track record of more than 14 years in fund management industry, and is specialized in fixed income investment.

They used to offer wholesale funds for the sophisticated investors (i.e. rich people) with minimum investment starting from RM50,000.

Recently, they have launched 3 unit trust funds targeted for ordinary investors with minimum investment starting from a much lower RM1,000.

The 3 unit trust funds are:

• Opus Income Plus Fund (IPF) which is a kind of bond fund seeks to achieve higher returns than Maybank 12-month fixed deposit rate over the medium to long term, while preserving capital and providing an opportunity for income.
• Opus Money Plus Fund (MPF) which is a kind of money market fund seeks to achieve higher returns than 1-month fixed deposit rate and to provide liquidity while preserving capital.
• Opus Shariah Income Plus Fund (SIPF) which is a kind of sukuk fund seeks to achieve higher returns than Maybank 12-month Islamic fixed deposit rate over the medium to long term, while preserving capital and providing an opportunity for income.

As you can sense from the description above, all these 3 unit trust funds are pretty conservative, emphasizing more on capital preservation, at the same time trying to beat the fixed deposit rate.

Therefore, they can be used as alternative to fixed deposit savings. They have the following advantages over fixed deposit:

• You can withdraw your invested money either partially or in whole at any time, without those restrictions as imposed to fixed deposit.
• You can potentially earn a higher return than fixed deposit rate. In fact, the MPF is pretty safe with minimum chance of losing money, at the same time able to produce slightly better return than fixed deposit.

On top of that, if you invest directly through their website called Opus Touch (URL: https://touch.opusasset.com/), you can enjoy 0% sales charge and 0% repurchase charge, which means that 100% of your money will be utilized to buy the fund, and none will be gone as sales commission.

The self-service Opus Touch website is pretty straight forwards to use. It can be accessed either from the web browser of your handphone, tablet or computer. It works flawlessly with Google Chrome.

 

It seems like Opus Touch does not have a mobile app yet, and can only be accessed with web browser. Hopefully in the near future, they can come out with Opus Touch mobile apps for easier use from handphone.

You can open your master account there with an initial investment in IPF of at least RM1,000. Once your master account is successfully opened, you can invest in any of the 3 available funds there.

You can also perform up to 4 times of fund switching per year for free, after that there will be a charge of RM25 per switching of fund.

Note that there are annual management fee and annual trustee fee, accrued on a daily basis. Their rate is pretty low compared with other unit trust funds in the market:

• IPF: mgmt. fee <= 0.85%, trustee fee <= 0.025% or min RM12k
• MPF: mgmt. fee <= 0.35%, trustee fee <= 0.025% or min RM12k
• SIPF: mgmt. fee <= 0.85%, trustee fee <= 0.025% or min RM12k

As such, the total fees per annum is less than 1% for all of the 3 funds above.

One of the thing I like about Opus Touch is that you can invest by using either Boost e-wallet or FPX (bank transfer).

By investing with Boost, you can also enjoy Boost rewards such as the shake rewards, mission rewards, etc.

In addition, if you run Boost from ShopBack app, you can also earn some ShopBack cashback.

In addition, you can top up your money in Boost to be used for Opus unit trust investment from BigPay, which in turn topped up using your credit card.

As such, you can get multiple tiers of rewards by investing Opus unit trust online with Opus Touch, including:

• Credit card cashback or points
• BigPay BIG Points
• ShopBack cashback
• Boost rewards
• Unit trust returns

Happy investing!

Online converting service apartment commercial electricity tariff to residential with myTNB portal

If you live in a service apartment which sit on a piece of commercial land title, you might be paying higher electricity bill every month if your electricity usage is charged based on commercial tariff.

You can file an application with Tenaga Nasional (TNB) to request to change your commercial tariff to the cheaper residential tariff, either by visiting to TNB branch in your area and submit the paper form, or submit the online form in myTNB portal anytime anywhere.

Either way, your application will be processed pretty soon. Normally, your tariff will be changed to residential rate during the next business day after online submission.

You can click here to access to myTNB portal. If you haven't created an account in myTNB, you will need to register for one before you can login.

After login, go to the Apply menu, and select the option "I want to do something else".

Then, select "I want to find out more about other services".

After that, select "Change My Tariff".

There are 4 steps to fill in the online form. Make sure you select "Domestic" as premise type, and select the correct residential type.

At the end of the process, you are required to submit a scanned copy of your MyKad. The name on the MyKad should be the same with the name printed on your electricity bill.

If you confirm to submit the application, you will be charged for RM10 stamp duty, which will be reflected in your upcoming electricity bill.

Upon successful submission, you will receive an email like below.

However, there seems to be no further notification on successful tariff change. You can login to myTNB after 24 hours later to check if your electricity tariff has been changed to residential rate or not.

For your information, current TNB commercial tariff is as below:

and current TNB residential tariff is as below:

If you don't apply for the conversion to residential rate, you might end up being charged double or more in your bill for same amount of electricity used in your service apartment unit.

Get additional online purchases cashback through Shopback, including Grab calling

Nowadays online merchants and/or e-commerce websites tend to give rebates in the form of special discount, free shipping, coupons, vouchers, cashback, etc. to maintain their attractiveness in having customers purchasing with them.

In addition, if you make payment with certain cashback credit cards for your purchases, you will also receive cashback from the credit card issuing bank as well. During certain debit card cashback campaign, you can also receive cashback by using such debit card too.

Now, you can get another layer of additional cashback, if you perform your online purchases through Shopback.

Shopback has been around for quite some times, and has grown into quite a successful online affiliate marketing portal. It will give you cashback if you access the e-commerce websites from the Shopback website or mobile app (instead of accessing directly to the e-commerce websites or their mobile apps), and made a confirmed purchase within a tracking timeframe.

Many has joint Shopback and enjoy the additional cashback from their e-commerce spending. If you have not joint the bandwagon, it is never too late to create a free Shopback account now. You can get RM5 sign-up cashback if you join by clicking this link to access to Shopback website, and click on the "Claim Your Bonus" there.

After that, continue to click here to go to Shopback mobile app download page to download its app. Note that for certain e-commerce websites including Lazada, 11street, Shopee, etc., you can only get your cashback from Shopback for online purchases done in mobile app, but not in their e-commerce website. (Previously, purchases made in their website were count for Shopback cashback, but things have already changed now.)

For some other e-commerce platform such as Taobao, you can still get Shopback cashback even though you make your purchase in their website.

Beside online e-commerce shopping, you can also get Shopback cashback from Grab calling by opening Shopback mobile app first, then open Grab mobile app from within the Shopback app.

To ensure a successful Shopback cashback for Grab:

• Book the Grab via Shopback mobile app only.
• Do not edit the Notes to driver and ensure that there is a code similar to **29437185SB003** under the Notes.
• Book only JustGrab, GrabCar and GrabShare rides. Cashback is not eligible on GrabTaxi rides.
• Ensure no existing trips before clicking through Shopback.
• Click through Shopback again for every ride.
• No cancellation or incomplete trip.

In fact, inside Shopback app, there is an updated list of Grab valid coupons, promo codes and offers for your easy reference, so that you won't miss out using those deals with Grab.

You can also use Shopback to get additional cashback from food delivery service with Foodpanda, Honestbee, DeliverEat, Eatigo, etc.

and also from hotel and flight booking with Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia, Klook, etc.

and also from mobile prepaid plan top-up using online reload service from Lazada, 11street, Qoo10, etc.

and also from online ticketing with StubHub, buying concert, festival, event tickets with them.

even subscribing to new broadband service with Unifi, Maxis, Time, etc. and this Shopback cashback amount can be up to several hundred ringgit.

As such, whenever you want to make online purchase, just access to Shopback mobile app and use it to go to the targeted m-commerce app, or access to Shopback web portal and use the link in the website to go to the targeted e-commerce website, you will get Shopback cashback from your confirmed purchases.

The cashback will be accumulated in your Shopback account, which you can then withdraw to your own bank account as real cash.

Online check whether handphone / tablet is genuine local original set with SIRIM MCMC Label registration

Communication products particularly handphones and tablets sold by authorized distribution channels in Malaysia are required to be certified by SIRIM under the Communications and Multimedia (Technical Standards) Regulations 2000.

Certified products will carry a genuine MCMC Label with serial number, normally stuck on the packaging box. Alternatively, it could be in the form of electronic MCMC Label stored digitally in the device, displayable on the screen normally from About page.

As such, you can know whether your handphone and/or tablet is genuine local original set by checking for its IMEI number(s) and/or Serial Number with SIRIM MCMC Label registration. If the result of the check is "not found" then your device is not registered with SIRIM, and most probably was imported from non-proper channel, or is a clone/counterfeit product.

There are 2 common ways to perform the checking online. One way is through the SIRIM e-comM enquiry website, and another is by using the SIRIM Check Your Label mobile app.

Below is the URL to check using the IMEI number of the handphone/tablet. For dual-SIM products, both IMEI numbers can be checked respectively:
https://ecomm.sirim.my/SirimEnquiry/search_IMEI.aspx

And you can download the Check Your Label mobile app from Google Play Store (for Android) and Apple iTune Store (for iOS).

The Check Your Label app will display slightly more information than the e-comM website.

 

 

Online checking for Huawei smartphone warranty period expiry and applicable country

If you have bought a new Huawei product such as a smartphone / tablet / laptop and have registered for its warranty, whereby the registration was done by your dealer or by yourself, you can actually check for its warranty information in Huawei Consumer Products website by using the serial number of your product.

You can, of course, make use of the same webpage to check whether:

• Your product has already been registered for warranty or not.
• Your product is a new set or used/refurbished set. Used or refurbished set will have warranty expiry shorter than the full warranty period.
• Your product is an original local set or non-local set.
• Your product is genuine Huawei product or counterfeit product with invalid serial number.

You just need 2 steps to perform this warranty checking.

Firstly, you need to know the serial number of your product, which is printed on the label at the packaging box.

For Huawei smartphone, the easiest way to find out your phone's serial number is by dialing *#06# which will display its serial number and IMEI number(s) on the screen. You can then long tap on the displayed serial number to copy it into your clipboard.

Another way to view the smartphone's serial number is by going to Settings > System > About Phone > Status.

Once you obtained the product serial number, open your web browser and visit to this webpage: https://consumer.huawei.com/my/support/warranty-query/

Paste or key-in your device serial number, and also enter the 4-characters captcha as verification code, then press the Search button.

For Huawei smartphone, the product warranty information page will show out:

• The product name and model number
• The product serial number
• Expected warranty expiration date
• Applicable scope
• Screen damage warranty expiration date
• Premium service expiration date

In addition, the device warranty expiration information is also available in the HiCare mobile app most probably pre-installed in the Huawei smartphone. Just open the app in the phone, tap on Me option, you'll be able to find the warranty expiration date and applicable country under the Device Benefits section.

Just tap into the Warranty and/or Screen Insurance image link to view the detail information.

Furthermore, you can continue to check whether your device is genuine local original set with SIRIM MCMC Label registration.

Google Chrome and Firefox will distrust websites with SSL/TLS certificate issued by Symantec / Verisign / Thawte / GeoTrust / RapidSSL

Web browsers Google Chrome (with 57.69% global market share as of March 2018) and Firebox (with 5.4% global market share as of March 2018) will start to distrust all the websites with SSL/TLS certificate issued by Symantec, Verisign, Thawte, GeoTrust and RapidSSL.

This means that soon in the near future, every time when you visit such websites using HTTPS protocol with Google Chrome, Firebox and possibly other web browsers which follow suit, the browser will give you a security warning before you can read their webpage.

Some of the affected popular websites including (but not limited to)...

 

In late 2017, DigiCert has acquired Symantec's Website Security and related PKI solutions which was the Certificate Authority for those affected Symantec, Verisign, Thawte, GeoTrust and RapidSSL SSL/TLS certificates.

Webmasters of all the affected websites can make arrangement with DigiCert to replace their SSL/TLS certificates with a new one issued by DigiCert, which is still trusted by Google Chrome and Firefox.

You can click here to read for more information about this issue.