China Life and YF Life to start cutting fees for members as eMPF reform gets rolling

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YF Life Trustees plans to cut management fees from September 26, while China Life Trustees will reduce its fees from October 29

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Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund, the compulsory retirement scheme, has about 4.75 million members. Photo: Sam Tsang

Enoch Yiu

Published: 8:30am, 29 Jul 2024

The first two Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) providers joining the electronic platform will soon cut fees for their members, as the most significant reform of Hong Kong’s compulsory retirement scheme starts to bear fruit for the 4.75 million members.

China Life Trustees, which joins the eMPF Platform on Monday, will cut the management fee of its investment funds from October 29, according to an online notice.

YF Life Trustees, the first provider to join the platform last month, plans to cut the management fee of 13 investment funds by up to 34 per cent from September 26, according to its CEO Alvin Tse.

The reduction in fees is one of the major benefits of the eMPF Platform, the most significant reform of the MPF since it was set up in 2000. The pension regulator Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA) earlier predicted the platform would cut administration costs by HK$30 billion (US$3.8 billion) to HK$40 billion over a 10-year period, paving the way for MPF providers to cut fees.

The eMPF will replace separate systems currently in use by different operators. It will allow the 12 MPF providers, 361,000 employers, and 4.75 million members to manage MPF assets worth HK$1.227 trillion through a single platform on their mobile phones or computers.

More than 20,000 users have registered for the eMPF and nearly 31,000 have downloaded mobile apps since the platform kicked off last month, according to MPFA data.