MPF consolidation - leaving in 6 months

Fymmie · 21-01-2019, 07:59 PM

Hi ,

I am planning to leave Hong Kong in 6 months.
Would it be better to consolidate my MPF into one fund (previous employer used another MPF)? Or just leave it as it is. I am just wondering about the fees involved.

I plan withdraw my MPF for re-investment purposes in my home country.

Appreciate any advice. Thanks.

chris_in_hk · 21-01-2019, 10:23 PM

Hi,

There are no fees when transferring or consolidating your accounts.

However two points to note. During the transfer period your investments will not be invested in the market, i.e. they've been turned into cash for transferring to your new provider, so you won't participate in any ups or downs in the stock market. Also note you may be transferring from a cheaper MPF fund to a more expensive one. Or vice versa. Though over a six month period it shouldn't make that big a difference unless you have a lot of money in your MPF's.

Perhaps more importantly if you have a lot of different MPF accounts all over the place you may want to consolidate them so that when you do want to withdraw it you only have to contact one MPF provider and not all the separate ones individually.

shri · 22-01-2019, 08:39 AM

Just six months to go. I would not bother with consolidation. With every change you make, you bring in chances of something going wrong.

Withdrawing is fairly easy and standard.

Fymmie · 22-01-2019, 11:52 AM

Thanks all.

Will I be charged twice for withdrawing two separate funds at a single time? I.e. one charge per each account.
Or it is one fee for two?

chuckster007 · 22-01-2019, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Fymmie:

Thanks all.

Will I be charged twice for withdrawing two separate funds at a single time? I.e. one charge per each account.
Or it is one fee for two?

there is NO withdrawal fee

Fymmie · 22-01-2019, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by chuckster007:

there is NO withdrawal fee

Thank you for that info. I thought that there might be.

Elegiaque · 22-01-2019, 02:07 PM

I have a similar question, except in my life as a part-time worker here and there I have 5+ accounts. Should I also just leave them? It's kind of a mess with various amounts of money here and there. In my mind, it would be nice if I could put them all neatly into one account so that in the future if/when I want to withdraw the money I can do it only through one account and take advantage of my free time now to get this more sorted. Several will only have a few thousand in them.

Elegiaque · 22-01-2019, 02:43 PM

Original Post Deleted

... thanks very much.

I really do find the whole MPF thing very confusing, and it hasn't helped that I've had countless employers for a few months at a time where I only make $5-50k at a time at the employer...

Let's say I have an account with A, say Manulife, and it is doing pretty well, and let's say I have accounts with B, C, and D. With B I've had multiple accounts (different employers).

Who do I contact to transfer B, C, and D to A? (In the past I found this confusing -- was it something like I fill out a form with A?)

Once the money is with A, then what? Is it not invested in anything? Does it just sit there as cash? That's not any good either!

Maybe I should just wait -- make sure I've got all my papers and account numbers handy and organized -- and then sometime in the future if I move away I can then go about getting cash back from all of them one by one?

rsl · 23-01-2019, 10:21 AM

I am in the process of consolidating my MPFs at HSBC (so 'A' in the parlance), I did it all through them and all they needed was my account number from Fidelity (B) and they filled out the form and told me it would be done in about 6 weeks. Took about 5 minutes. Simples.

Also I wouldn't worry about keeping 'winners' in your MPF, but would strongly advocate using the DIS unless you have strong conviction/investment management experience. The management fees for all the other funds are a rip-off imho.

Elegiaque · 23-01-2019, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by rsl:

I am in the process of consolidating my MPFs at HSBC (so 'A' in the parlance), I did it all through them and all they needed was my account number from Fidelity (B) and they filled out the form and told me it would be done in about 6 weeks. Took about 5 minutes. Simples.

Also I wouldn't worry about keeping 'winners' in your MPF, but would strongly advocate using the DIS unless you have strong conviction/investment management experience. The management fees for all the other funds are a rip-off imho.

Yes, in the past it was quite confusing because I was told I need to transfer B through A -- all dealt with through forms through the post, which wasn't helpful either. Are there typically offices for these MPFs where I could go in person and deal with it?

I guess for jobs I've finished, I must still keep the MPF money in an MPF account (thus paying the rip off fees), right?