About the Statutory Reserve Requirement (SRR)

Effective 1 December 2008, Bank Negara (BNM) reduced the Statutory Reserve Requirement (SRR) by 50 basis points from 4% to 3.5%, together with the reduction of Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) from 3.5% to 3.25%. The last adjustment to SRR rate was made 10 years ago, from 6% to 4% effective 16 September 1998.

The SRR is a monetary policy instrument available to BNM to manage liquidity and hence credit creation in the banking system. It is used to withdraw or inject liquidity when the excess or lack of liquidity in the banking system is perceived by BNM to be large and long-term in nature.

SRR is the amount of money set aside by banks (all commercial, merchant, investment, islamic banks) to be placed in their Statutory Reserve Accounts with BNM with zero interest. By lowering the SRR, the banks will have a reduced cost of funds, and can therefore help to preserve their profit margins by lending out the liquidated money and earn interest.

A reduction in SRR will inject a certain amount of liquidity into the financial system, which is expected to be lend out by the banks to finance more economic activities in the market. The recent move of 50 basis points SRR reduction by BNM is expected to release about RM2.7~3 billion ringgit back to the bank system.

Together with the 25 basis points reduction to the OPR at the same time, it is expected to have positive impact to the economy as the bank can now lend out more money to earn interest, and the business and consumer public can also borrow money from the bank with a lower interest rate following the reduction of OPR for consumption or investment purposes.

Click here to learn more about SRR.

Added the e-Referer gadget

I have added a new gadget to this blog, namely the e-Referer.

This is how it works: if you've provided a link from your website to my blog here, and somebody clicked on that link to make a visit to here, your website will be listed in my referer listing, which contains a link back to your website.

I have made the setting so that the last 20 referers are listed. So, in order to stay on top of the list, continuous visiting from your website to update the last visit timestamp record is necessary. The number of reference made from your website is also shown beside your link. The total number of references within the last 127 days will be shown below the gadget.

If you find that this gadget is cool and you would like to have one in your website, just click on the e-Referer link provided in the gadget, register for a free account there, and copy over the javascript codes into your website.

Asia Trader & Investor Convention @ KL 2009

Organized by NextVIEW and first launched in 2006, the Asia Trader and Investor Convention (ATIC) has travelled to 7 Asian Cities -- Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai, Shenzhen and Tokyo.

With participation by over 300 financial services organizations including securities exchanges, retail & consumer banks, securities brokerage firms, asset/fund management firms, listed companies and other financial services providers, ATIC events have already attracted over 75,000 active traders and serious investors across Asia.

The ATIC @ KL 2009 is coming soon.
Date: 14-15 March 2009
Time: 9.00am - 6.00pm
Venue: Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, KLCC, Malaysia

It will feature more than 50 English and Mandarin investment seminars, 30 international and local renowned speakers, 40 exhibitors and 15,000-20,000 targeted investors.

Some of the feature speakers including:

• Daryl Guppy - Founder & Director of Guppytraders.com
• Paul Forchione - Commodity Trading Advisor
• Brent Penfold - Veteran Trader, Licensed Futures Adviser, Educator
• Dale Gillham - Fund Manager, Author, Educator & Founder of Wealth Within, Markets
• Collin Li Xin Jing 李欣京 - Technical Markets Strategist
• Don Schellenberg - Founder, Master Money Traders
• Benny Lee - Chief Market Strategist
• Yusrizan Ome Yaacob - Retail Market Strategist
• Dar Wong - Independent Trainer & Columnist
• Alan Hing - Institutional Trainer
• Alan Voon 温世麟 - CEO, Warrants Capital
• Saeed Shah - Senior Sales Manager
• Azizi Ali - Chartered Financial Consultant
• William Wermine - Fund Manager Rep
• G.M. Teoh - Technical Analyst
  

This event is endorsed/supported by:

• Financial Planning Association of Malaysia (FPAM)
• Institute Bank-Bank Malaysia (IBBM)
• Malaysian Association Of Chartered Financial Consultants (MAChFC)
• Malaysia Futures Brokers Association (MFBA)
• Persatuan Wakil Niaga Saham Malaysia (PERSAMA)
• Persatuan Remisier Bumiputra (PRIBUMI)

It carries a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) 15 hours for Registered Financial Planner (RFP) designees. The early bird entry ticket for this 2 days event is free (normal price is RM28.00).

Click here for more information about ATIC at KL 2009.