Shenton Way - Financial Business District

This is CPF Building where most Singaporeans would come when they retired. CPF Board stands for Central Provident Fund Board. The board was created to safeguard Singaporean's money.

Every month, we need to deduct a certain percentage of our salary and our employers has to contribute a certain percentage of our salary to our account. The percentage varies for different age group.

Our CPF Account operates with three accounts i.e. Ordinary Account, Medisave Account and Special/Retirement Account.

We can used money from the CPF ordinary Account to purchase our home or investment (only those approved by the government), Medisave Account are used to pay part of our hospital bills and Retirement Account can only be used when we retired.

It used to be we can withdraw all the money in our ordinary account when we reach 55 years old but there are many who spend all the money they withdrawn on holidays, gambling and some even get a mistress in a neighbouring country. Some man even get cheated of their CPF money by pretty young lass from other country.

These are real news that we get to read daily in the papers.

So the government do not want this to be a social problem to the nation and now there is limit to how much we can withdraw from the ordinary account and the balance will be transferred to the Retirement Account and when we reach 62 years old, we get a monthly allowance of few hundred dollars (more for those who earn higher salary) for the next twenty years. Not many are happy with this rule but in long term, I think it is good so that retirees wont spend their hard earned savings of their CPF unwisely nor would they be cheated by young pretty lass from other country.

So dont expect a windfall when we reach 55 years old...sigh...our money are locked up. :( Either you like this new rule or you hate it.

A short video showing a small part of the financial district in Shenton Way.