Malaysia Interbank GIRO money transfer cost to reduce to 10 sen, cheque will be charged processing fee on top of stamp duty

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) plans to encourage paperless electronic money transfer by greatly reduce the charge of Interbank GIRO (IBG) money transfer with Internet banking or mobile banking, and at the same time greatly increase the cost of cheque transaction by charging processing fee on top of the existing stamp duty of each cheque issued out by the consumer.

Effective 2 May 2013, bank charge for IBG transaction performed online via internet banking or mobile banking will be reduced to RM0.10 only, compared to the current rate of between RM1-RM4.

On the other hand, from April 2014 onwards, the a processing fee of RM0.50 per cheque transaction will be charged, on top of the existing RM0.15 stamp duty, making the transaction per cheque to cost RM0.65. The processing fee will gradually increase to the level of RM3 in the future.

Note that before 2010, outstation cheques were charged RM0.50 by the bank for clearing. That charge was waived since the implementation of Cheque Truncation and Cheque Conversion System (CTCS) in Malaysia. Now it seems that the RM0.50 cost will be added back in the form of processing fee, and this time, is regardless the cheque is local or outstation.

It is a good news for online banking users to be able to transfer money electronically at a much lower cost in the near future.

However, as far as we know, transferring of money via online banking is capped to RM5,000 per day or so. Unless the banks revise this limit, it will bring inconvenient to us. In certain occasions, writing cheque is still the more preferred way, especially when the amount of money is large, such as buying a car, buying a house, paying lawyer fee, etc.

It is also a more common practice for companies to make payment in cheques.

I hope that BNM will really think through carefully before enforcing the "discouraging mechanism" of using cheque in order to get people to use electronic money transfer.

DAYANG (5141) share price hit new historical high again

Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd (DAYANG, 5141), an oil & gas company specilized in offshore topside maintenance services (TMS), offshore hook-up and comissioning (HUC) services, etc. is considered to be one of the largest offshore platform services providers in Malaysia.

Just like most other East Malaysia companies listed in KLSE, most of the time DAYANG remained undetected from the radar screen of most investors. It gained attention since Q4 2012, especially after announcing a superb quarterly report on 19 November 2012 with single quarter EPS of 7.52 sen, and its share price hitting historical record one after another from then onwards.

DAYANG share price hit RM2.72 on 21 January 2013 with high volume of 5.07 million shares transacted. After that, its share price dropped gradually to as low as RM2.34 on 25 February 2013, probably due to the sell down from Lembaga Tabung Haji.

It announced a poorer quarterly result on 26 February 2013 with lower revenue, but net profit is not affected too badly due to higher margin. A 5 sen tax-exempt dividend was announced, going to ex on 15 March 2013. Its share price moved up again, testing the previous high of RM2.72 on 3 March and 6 March 2013. Then, its price corrected to RM2.6x before regained momentum and hit its new record high of RM2.98 today morning and closed at RM2.85 at high volume of 6.58 million shares transacted.

Its intraday chart for 12 March 2013 is as below:

DAYANG is an associate company of Naim Holdings Bhd (NAIM, 5073) and the financial performance of NAIM is currently pretty much depends on its 33.6% holdings of DAYANG. NAIM share price rose 10 sen from RM2.23 to RM2.33 today (12 March 2013).

DAYANG is financially healthy with strong cash position  of about RM300 million. It recently acquired about 26.1% shares of its new associate company Perdana Petroleum Bhd (PERDANA, 7108). PERDANA and PERDANA-WA prices also rose in tandem with DAYANG and NAIM today (12 March 2013).

PERDANA was not doing well financially before DAYANG's acquisition, and is currently on its way making a turnaround. Recently, it disposed 7 old vessels with average age of approximately 30 years to PT Ninda Pratama Vriesindo from Indonesia, for a total consideration of US$3.45m. This move is expected to save about RM10-12 million annually in maintenance cost for PERDANA, and is viewed as an important move in its financial restructuring exercise.

DAYANG is teaming up with PERDANA to bid for a contract potentially worth RM3 billion from Shell, involving the Pan Malaysia Umbrella HUC project. Both DAYANG and Petra Energy Bhd (PENERGY, 5133) are shortlisted and the contract is predicted to be announced soon. Interestingly, PENERGY is an associate company of PERDANA, as PERDANA holds about 29.6% shares in PENERGY.

DAYANG has outstanding contracts worth some RM1.2 billion that could keep it busy until 2016.

The oil and gas activities in Malaysia is very active now. In 2012, Petronas has made  22 domestic discoveries, signed 9 Production Sharing Contract (PSC) agreements, awarded more contracts for marginal field Risk Service Contract (RSC), etc.

Today (12 March 2013), Lundin Petroleum, a Swedish-based independent oil and gas explorer, announced that it found more oil trapped in sand offshore Pahang, Malaysia after drilling in Block PM308A, as an extension to its discovery of oil sands in the same area in 2011.

Malaysia's deepwater reserves potential is estimated to be 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE), and only 3 BBOE have been discovered so far, leaving  another 7 BBOE yet to be discovered.

All these new oil and gas development in the region are expected to bring benefit and money to the Malaysian O&G companies. This is the catalyst that will bring analysts' attention to O&G counters in KLSE.

DAYANG is currently covered by HwangDBS, OSK, Public Bank, HLG, RHB, BIMB, etc. All are making "buy" call. HwangDBS and HLG both set its target price to RM3.36 as of today.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for sharing of point of view only. It is not an advice or recommendation to buy or sell any of the mentioned stock counters. You should do your own homework before trading in Bursa Malaysia.

Microsoft Office 2013 traditional suite (retail box) no longer allow installation in more than 1 PC

Microsoft has just launched their Office 2013 suite, which is generally available in 2 different formats:

• the cloud-based Office 365 chargeable in yearly subscription basis, one subscription entitled to installation in 5 devices regardless PC, laptop, tablet or Mac.
• the traditional Office 2013 as Full Packaged Product (FPP - retail box) or Electronic Software Delivery (ESD - Internet download), paid once in a life time for the license.

The previous version of MS Office 2010 FPP products allow installation in multiple computers:

• MS Office Home and Student 2010 - up to 3 computers within the same household
• MS Office Home and Business 2010 - 1 computer and 1 laptop (mobile device) used by the same user
• MS Office Professional 2010 - 1 computer and 1 laptop (mobile device) used by the same user 

However, the new MS Office 2013, regardless Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013 or Office Professional 2013, is only licensed for 1 user and 1 computer only.

Beside this, the previous license agreement for MS Office 2010 retail products is transferable from one computer to another. You can uninstall the legitimate copy of MS Office 2010 from one computer, and use its license key to install and activate a new copy of MS Office 2010 in another computer, not more than one time every 90 days. You can also make a one-time transfer of ownership of the software and license to another user (i.e. sell or give it to another person).

The new MS Office 2013 was initially non-transferable, meaning once it is installed and activated in one computer, no other computer can use the same license, regardless the original is uninstalled or scrapped or not. This include situation when you want to shift from old or damaged computer to a new computer.

Anyhow, due to numerous protest by the users, there is news that Microsoft has just changed their policy to also allow MS Office 2013 to be transferable now.