Filipinos have lowest retirement savings – poll
Credit to Author: MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO, TMT| Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2019 16:40:51 +0000
Filipino investors are saving less money for their retirement when compared to their Asian peers, a financial services firm said.
Results of the Manulife Investor Sentiment Index (MISI) survey showed that Filipino investors only have personal income equivalent to 3.6 months set aside for their retirement.
“The Philippines is the lowest in Asia. We are falling a little bit behind our peers in terms of the amount of money that we currently save for retirement,” Manulife Philippines Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Henson said in Makati on Friday.
The investors in Taiwan have the highest retirement savings, with personal income set aside good for 4.5 years. They are followed by investors in China and Indonesia who both have retirement savings that can last for 4.1 years, she added. On average, Asian investors have enough retirement savings for 2.9 years.
“A huge gap lies between Filipino investors’ current and ideal retirement savings,” Henson also said, pointing out that the retirement savings gap averages at over P4 million across all age groups.
She added that Filipinos also viewed the lowest amount as sufficient for retirement as they believed that savings equivalent to 2.1 years’ worth of personal income was enough.
The Manulife executive observed that this was remarkably low compared with the regional average of 12 years, and with the regional highs of Taiwan’s 19.6 years, and China and Hong Kong’s 15.4 years.
Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that as much as 84 percent of Filipino investors were looking into continuing working after retirement, either on a full-time or part-time basis. Top reasons for active retirement across age groups include keeping busy and occupied (66 percent), physical and mental health (65 percent), pursuing interests and enjoying life (63 percent), as well as financial considerations such as maintaining or improving living standards (59 percent), and saving additional money for the future (56 percent).
MISI is a proprietary survey measuring and tracking investors’ views across eight markets in Asia on their attitudes towards key asset classes and issues related to personal financial planning.
The latest survey was based on 4,011 online interviews in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Respondents were middle class to affluent investors aged 25 years and above who were primary decision makers for financial matters in the household and currently had investment products.
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