Maybank: Discontinuation of Physical Gold Wafers

Maybank no longer backs its paper gold with physical gold. They may say they does. You will never know.

Dear Valued Customer,

With effect from 16 May 2011, Gold Savings Passbook Account (GSPA) has been renamed as Maybank Gold Investment Account (MGIA). In line with MGIA’s enhanced features, existing GSPA accountholders who wish to withdraw from their account in a form of gold wafer may do so, subject to availability as per Clause 16.2 of the GSPA Agreement with a premium charge applicable. Accountholders have until 2 September 2011 to withdraw in the form of wafers, after which the available options of payment will only be in the form of cash or credit into their accounts.

For GSPA accountholders who are holding Maybank gold wafers, you may convert the gold wafers to cash or credit them to your account at the prevailing market price at selected Maybank branches from now till 2 September 2011. The selected Maybank branches are listed below:

Kuala Lumpur Main	Penang Main	Kuantan Main
Bukit Bintang	Alor Star Main	Seremban
Kota Bahru Main	Malacca Main	Shah Alam
Tawau	Ipoh Main	Wisma Satok
Kota Kinabalu	Lahad Datu

Should you still wish to have the option of retaining the gold in physical form, we would suggest that you opt to purchase the Kijang Emas gold coin issued by Bank Negara Malaysia which is available at selected Maybank branches.

Thank you.

Those who invested in Gold Savings Passbook Account (GSPA) will have until 2nd of September to withdraw their physical gold wafers. Thereafter, your gold investment will in paper format – a passbook.

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Shocking: US Sunked from AAA to AA+

We had an exciting week last week. You should by now know that US is at risk of diving into a deep recession soon.

^ President Obama: Mmm… no more AAA? You must be kidding me.

Last Thursday we had our worst drop in DOW since 2008’s subprime mortgage crisis. The DOW went to the lowest of -8% before ending the week of bad news with -6%. When we Malaysian woke up on Friday, KLSE join the bear rush and ended the Friday with a -2% retreat.

^ Financial graph from Yahoo! Finances

America continued their Friday with rebounce only to be hit by another uppercut. Standard & Poor’s downgraded US credit card from brilliant AAA to AA+. Not just any AA+, its AA+ with negative outlook.

“United States of America Long-Term Rating Lowered To ‘AA+’ Due To Political Risks, Rising Debt Burden; Outlook Negative” – Standard & Poor’s official statement.

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Third Series of Malaysian Coins, in Detailed Comparison

In this post, we will investigate in details our 3rd series coins. This is in response to my previous post, 10 facts about Malaysia’s new 3rd series coins. I will share with you how I discover my facts.

^ I was at Bank Negara yesterday to check out the new coins first handed

The engineering of my facts are simply breaking down the metal content of the coin in percentage and matches it with current metal market price. Four metals are involved in today’s baking lesson. They are namely Nickel, Copper, Zinc and Stainless Steel. Sadly, none of them are in the precious metals group.

Let’s crunch some numbers.

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10 Facts About Malaysia’s New 3rd Series Coins

^ Image from http://www.bnm.gov.my website.
Today, we welcome the news from Bank Negara that we will be having a new set of coins to replace our current aged design. I took the effort to investigate and compare the newer coins with our existing coins and found some interesting facts. Below are the 10 facts I found interesting and that all Malaysian should know.

10 facts about the 3rd series Malaysian coins

Fact #1: 50 sen shrinks 39.3% in weight.

Fact #2: 5 sen gain 21.9% in weight.

Fact #3: 50 and 20 sen have Nickel Brass content.

Fact #4: 5 sen is the only one gain in diameter with 9.4% gain.

Fact #5: 1 sen is officially retired.

Fact #6: Stainless steels are now our new 5 and 10 sen.

Fact #7: 100% nickel 50 sen is still 20% off its face value.

Fact #8: None of it has metal value that matches it’s face value.

Fact #9: None of it has value higher than the previous coins.

Fact #10: None of it has any precious metals in it.

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