☕️ EPF: What's new in 2026?

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

Billionaire Beyoncé - the superstar is now the fifth musician to be declared a billionaire by Forbes, putting her on the list of the world’s wealthiest people. This places her in an elite group of musicians, which includes Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen, and her husband, Jay-Z. While she does have a business empire with several brands, such as haircare brand Cécred and whisky label SirDavis, most of her personal wealth still comes from her music career. Major contributors to her net worth include her 2023 Renaissance World Tour, which grossed nearly USD600 mil (RM2.43 bil), and her 2025 Cowboy Carter Tour, which is estimated to have racked up over USD400 mil in ticket sales, with a further USD50 mil from merchandise sold at shows.

GBP1.79 mil (RM9.76 mil). That is the price of the most expensive drug in the world. This drug, a gene therapy treatment called Zolgensma, is a one-off treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, a condition caused by the lack of a protein vital for muscle development. An Oxford University study found that around 70 babies in the UK are born with the illness each year. However, the long-term effects of Zolgensma are still being studied, as the UK’s National Health Service only started offering it as a treatment in 2021.
Learn: What is Spinal Muscular Atrophy?

Local influencer Khairulaming gained two mil followers in 2025. A post on X highlighted a list of his achievements for 2025, including making RM1 mil in sales in just 19 seconds, and building a restaurant in the heart of Kuala Lumpur with RM4 mil in capital. In the post, he offered a video compiling those achievements while sharing his reflections on 2025, which he hopes will serve as a catalyst for anyone looking to challenge themselves and step out of their comfort zones in 2026. Check out his new restaurant, Rembayung, here. No VIP rooms btw. 

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

January Transfer Season
January is not only the time for the football transfer window, but apparently, it is time for Malaysian political parties to rethink, and maybe change allegiance too. Let’s see some of the confirmed and rumoured moves.

Confirmed: Bersatu (or key persons from the party) exiting Perikatan Nasional (PN)
PN chairman, Muhyiddin Yassin, PN secretary general Mohamed Azmin Ali and Johor PN chief Dr Sahruddin Jamal, all of whom are from Bersatu, relinquished their respective positions within PN effective January 1. Responding to the news, Bersatu founding member, Redzuan Yusof, has called the move a ‘masterstroke’, preventing the ‘Perlis crisis’ from becoming a national issue and refocusing Muhyiddin’s attention in strengthening Bersatu. Consequently, PAS has stepped up to fill the power vacuum left by the Bersatu leaders and is willing to lead PN, moving forward, especially for the upcoming state elections and GE16.

Rumoured: UMNO to leave the Unity Government
During UMNO special convention over the weekend, UMNO Youth chief, Muhamad Akmal Saleh, has called upon his party, and to the extent Barisan Nasional (BN), to exit the Unity Government as UMNO’s current role in the government has forced it to compromise on ‘red lines’ involving race, religion and royalty. He added that this proposal will be brought to the Supreme Council and the UMNO General Assembly to be passed as a resolution. The UMNO General Assembly is scheduled to be held from January 14 to January 17. While certain factions within BN, including MCA Youth chief Ling Tian Soon, supported the move, some factions, even from UMNO itself, rejected Akmal’s call to exit the government, as UMNO’s withdrawal is akin to shooting itself in the leg. Jeli Umno Youth information chief Wan Mahussin Wan Zain warned that abandoning PM Anwar Ibrahim would weaken UMNO’s influence, marginalise Malay political power and risk its long-term relevance to voters.

Rumoured: UMNO to gang up again with PAS
After announcing his proposal for UMNO to exit the government, he suggested that UMNO should revive its coalition with PAS, dubbed Muafakat Nasional (MN), an electoral pact between the two parties that was created in 2019, which quickly fell apart when PAS decided to lompat and formed PN with Bersatu. The youth chief of Amanah, a splinter party from PAS, has called Akmal’s proposal for UMNO to leave the government odd because UMNO benefited the most from being a part of the government, holding key ministerial portfolios which are - rural development, higher education, foreign affairs, defence, international trade, law & institutional reforms and plantation. As a fact, UMNO is currently holding 13 portfolios in the Cabinet (ministership + deputy ministership), the second highest after PKR.

More military men are suspected of the corruption scandal
Apart from the former head of the army, who is now under so-called forced garden leave, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has identified additional individuals suspected of being involved in corruption linked to several army procurement tender projects. MACC also stated that asset tracking and freezing measures were underway, but the amount is still undisclosed. While MACC stopped short of naming names, Port Dickson Bersatu chief, Badrul Hisham Shahrin, aka Chegubard, was more than happy to expose the names. He is the main whistleblower in this whole military corruption scandal. Apart from the on-leave Army General, Muhammad Hafizuddeain Bin Jantan, Chegubard also named the National Defence Education Centre (Puspahanas) president, Vice-Admiral Sabri Zali, as one of the senior military officers who formed the cartel at the centre of the alleged corruption scandal. Chegubard also dropped the bombshell and said that even PM Anwar Ibrahim and Defence Minister Khaled Nordin are aware of cartels within the armed forces.

Key EPF enhancements in 2026
The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has rolled out a series of policy and product enhancements to strengthen retirement savings, expand social protection and enhance the member experience, as announced by PM Anwar Ibrahim in Budget 2026. Below are new roll-outs:

• Introduction of i-Saraan Plus for gig-economy workers (e-hailing and p-hailing drivers). Under i-Saraan Plus, eligible drivers will receive a higher government matching incentive of up to RM600 per year, with a lifetime cap of RM6,000.

• The extension of eligibility age for i-Suri, the contribution scheme for housewives, from 55 to 60.

• The increase in the withdrawal ceiling for Hajj purposes from Akaun Sejahtera, up from RM3,000 to RM10,000.

• New Retirement Income Adequacy (RIA) framework, which establishes three savings tiers to guide members’ retirement planning - Basic (RM390,000), Adequate (RM650,000) and Enhanced (RM1.3 mil). In line with these new savings tiers, the EPF is also revising its policies for high-balance accounts and investments.

RM7.7 bil has been spent on toll compensation, and for what?
A transport think tank, MY Mobility Vision, revealed that Putrajaya has spent RM7.7 bil since 2016 towards compensating toll concessionaires to prevent rate hikes, provide discounts and the occasional free tolls during holidays. MY Mobility Vision co-founder Rahman Hussin stated that compensation is a form of broad-based subsidy, which went against the direction of the current government that prefers to pursue targeted subsidies. Recently, Putrajaya announced an allocation of RM591.5 mil to freeze toll hikes on 10 highways this year, among the lowest amounts in recent years. In 2021 alone, RM1.3 bil was spent to keep toll rates as they were.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

The US takes Venezuela - and its president too
The Trump administration has launched a major attack on Venezuela’s capital, Caracas (watch the strike here) on early Saturday, capturing the country’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The US said that Maduro has been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States”. Maduro’s capture took place after a months-long US pressure campaign against his government, which included US seizures of oil tankers off the Venezuelan coast, as well as deadly attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. Maduro has been rejecting the claims all this time, and said that the Saturday attack was for the US to “seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence”.

In a statement on Saturday, Trump said that “very large United States oil companies” would move into Venezuela to “fix the badly broken… oil infrastructure and start making money for the country”, and added that his administration’s actions “will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe”. In short, the US will run Venezuela. The real intent is very obvious here. Legal experts, world leaders and Democratic Party lawmakers in the US have condemned the administration’s actions as a violation of international law. Venezuela’s defence minister released a defiant statement in response to the US attacks, urging people to remain united, and that Venezuela will not negotiate and give up on its independence. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as the interim President. It remains unclear how exactly the US plans to “run” Venezuela, and how long the purported transitional period will last.

Meanwhile, China, Venezuela’s largest buyer of oil, has called out to the US to immediately release Maduro, and to “stop toppling the government of Venezuela”, calling the attack a “clear violation of international law“. Beyond energy, China has growing trade and investment interests across Latin America, meaning Beijing is paying close attention to political shifts in the region. Venezuela sounds like a nearer chokepoint for the US on China’s energy supply. 

Who has the world’s largest oil reserves? Venezuela. 300 bil barrels lying untapped, equating to 17% of global reserves - more than Saudi, Iran and Iraq and 3x more than the reserves in the US.
View chart: Who has the most oil in the ground?

Countries lash out at X for ‘offensive’ Grok images generated from user prompts
Criticism and threats of government action have fallen onto billionaire Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, after numerous reports saying that it created sexualised images of adults and children on X in response to user prompts, essentially making deepfakes as easy as ABC. The latest country to express growing concern over Grok is Malaysia, with authorities issuing a statement stating that creating or transmitting such harmful content is an offence under Malaysian law. Other countries also include India, which wrote to X ordering a comprehensive review of the AI chatbot to ensure it did not generate content containing “nudity, sexualisation, sexually explicit or otherwise unlawful content”, and was warned of possible legal action under criminal and information technology laws.

The French government has also accused Grok of generating “clearly illegal” sexual content on X without people’s consent, potentially violating the European Union’s Digital Services Act. Over the past two weeks, an increasing number of users on the platform have requested Grok to create images and to morph photographs of women and children in a sexual context, essentially making deepfakes (wrongly) as easy as ABC. The trend caught on globally after the platform introduced the edit-image feature ahead of Christmas. In the UK, a user named Samantha Smith shared a post on X about her image being altered, citing that she felt “dehumanised and reduced into a sexual stereotype” after Grok was used to digitally remove her clothing. Her post was met with comments from those who had experienced the same. xAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to a request for comment, other than with an automatically-generated reply stating “legacy media lies”.

Shorts

1. Bulgaria adopts the Euro, nearly 20 years after joining the EU

   New year, new currency. Jan 1, 2026, marks the day Bulgaria adopts the Euro currency and bids goodbye to its lev currency, which has been in use since the late 19th century. PM Rossen Jeliazkov said that he felt that his cabinet had accomplished a milestone and ended the year with a GDP of EUR 113 bil (nearly RM539 bil) and economic growth of more than 3%, which places them among the top five countries in the EU. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 49 per cent of Bulgarians are against the single currency. Some Bulgarians worry the introduction of the euro could lead to price increases.

2. Thieves stole EUR30 mil in German bank heist

   A heist, said by the police to be “very professionally executed” a la Ocean’s Eleven, has taken place at the Sparkasse savings bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen, western Germany, where the thieves broke open more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes and stole an estimated EUR30 mil in cash and valuables. The bank said that 95% of customers’ safe deposit boxes had been forced open by the thieves, adding that the contents of each compartment are insured up to EUR10,300 and told customers to check if they had additional coverage through their home insurance. Currently, no arrests have been made, and the perpetrators remain at large.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

New Year, New Skills: Household Edition

1. This guy has endless life hacks in his playbook to make household chores a bit easier to do. For example, putting on a new sheet for a bolster. Give Jason_Jezi a follow on IG here.

2. The art of folding a shirt.

3. Opening a can without the strength of the Incredible Hulk.