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KUALA LUMPUR, November 11, 2026 – The government, through the Employees Provident Fund, will continue to study a proposal to expand the i-Sayang scheme so that Malaysian husbands can make voluntary contributions for their non-citizen wives, the Finance Ministry has said in a written parliamentary reply.
The ministry said the proposal would be examined carefully, taking into account the need to protect families’ retirement savings and to ensure the programme remains sustainable. It has not been approved or put into effect.
“The government takes note of the proposal to expand the eligibility criteria for i-Sayang recipients to allow non-citizen wives to receive transferred contributions from their Malaysian citizen husbands. The proposal requires careful consideration to ensure that any expansion remains aligned with the original objectives of i-Sayang and the EPF’s retirement savings policy framework,” the ministry said.
“In this regard, the suitability of its implementation must be carefully assessed, including its implications for retirement savings protection and objectives, as well as legal, governance, operational and programme sustainability aspects, before further consideration is given.”
The reply, published on Parliament’s website on Wednesday, was in response to a question from Rodziah Ismail (Pakatan Harapan–Ampang). She had asked about the strategies and implementation mechanisms for expanding i-Sayang to allow Malaysian husbands to contribute voluntarily for non-citizen wives, given that non-citizen husbands are already allowed to do so for their Malaysian citizen wives.
i-Sayang is a government initiative that allows husbands to transfer, voluntarily, two per cent of their employee contributions to their wives’ EPF accounts. Since it was introduced in March 2023, 233,371 husbands have registered as contributors, involving 233,547 wives as recipients, according to the figures given in the reply.
As at August 31, 2026, a total of RM563.6 million had been transferred through the scheme.
The ministry’s language is cautious throughout. It acknowledges the proposal and the existing asymmetry, under which non-citizen husbands may already contribute for Malaysian wives, but it does not set a timetable, a decision date or a preferred outcome. Any change would come only after the legal, governance, operational and sustainability questions it has listed have been assessed.
Under the scheme as it stands, the transfer is voluntary and is limited to two per cent of the husband’s employee contribution. The official figures — 233,371 husbands, 233,547 wives and RM563.6 million transferred by the end of August — describe take-up of the existing arrangement, not the proposed change.
The political question put to the ministry was a narrow one: how, if at all, the scheme might be extended so that Malaysian husbands could do for non-citizen wives what non-citizen husbands may already do for Malaysian wives. The ministry has neither rejected nor accepted that change. It has said only that the idea will continue to be studied, and that legal, governance, operational and sustainability issues must be examined first. The Edge Malaysia, reporting the same written reply on Thursday, likewise recorded those take-up figures and said the proposal remains under study.
Source: the Finance Ministry’s written parliamentary reply, as reported by Bernama and The Edge Malaysia.
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