The Employees Provident Fund or EPF encourages members to make nominations to avoid complications upon the distribution and ensure that the right persons receive the funds in the event of death.

However, the nomination distribution must be 100 percent in total. For example if a member has RM100,000 in the EPF, the member must apportion out the whole sum of RM100,000 in the nomination process.

The member cannot make partial nomination of let’s say 25 percent goes to a particular person while the remaining 75 percent of the monies is left undetermined, subject to the laws or the provisions of the members Will, Probate or letter of administration.

Sometimes, the EPF member has only decided on what percentage to give to a particular beneficiary but uncertain on how much the other beneficiaries are supposed to get. As such, a partial nomination should be allowed in the interim. Such situations are prevalent for EPF members who have a large EPF amount of let’s say RM500,000 to above one million, where it will be come hard to determine the percentage each beneficiary should get.

Another matter is that members are unable to nominate non-persons and charity bodies as the beneficiaries because the EPF regulations states that a nominee must be a ‘natural person’ being individuals and does not refer to organisations, associations, societies, welfare bodies and others.

This is a particular concern if members are unmarried and do not have any next of kin but would like certain charity bodies to be the beneficiaries.

Would the EPF pay out the monies upon death of the member to the charity body of his or her choice if the member has a Will and Probate stating so? The EPF Act is silent on this and as such the monies can be withheld and not paid out to the charity bodies stated in the Will and Probate. In such an event, the withheld monies becomes unclaimed monies subjected to the Unclaimed Moneys Act 1965.

The EPF must relax the nomination regulations for partial nomination and to include a wider scope of beneficiaries. After all it is already uncomfortable enough for members to prepare for eventual or untimely death. As such, the rights of what to do with the member’s monies upon death must not be restricted.