{"id":244268,"date":"2026-01-14T14:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244268\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T14:01:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:01:05","slug":"govt-close-to-finalising-low-cost-retirement-investment-scheme-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244268\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt close to finalising low-cost retirement investment scheme details"},"content":{"rendered":"

SINGAPORE \u2013 CPF members who want to invest their savings in a retirement investment scheme, <\/p>\n

first announced and accepted by the Government in 2016<\/p>\n

<\/a>, will have to wait a little longer to do so.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Manpower is in the \u201cfinal stages\u201d of studying the CPF Lifetime Retirement Investment Scheme (LRIS) and will give updates when it is ready.<\/p>\n

The LRIS is billed as a simple and low-cost investment <\/p>\n

alternative to the Central Provident Fund Investment Scheme (CPFIS<\/p>\n

<\/a>) products.<\/p>\n

Manpower Minister Tan See Leng was responding in Parliament to a question from Jalan Besar GRC MP Shawn Loh, who asked if the delay in implementing the scheme may deprive CPF members of an option to take risks to earn higher expected returns.<\/p>\n

Mr Loh pointed out that a typical investment portfolio with 65 per cent invested in equities and 35 per cent in bonds had earned 9.5 per cent returns every year over the past five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Tan said the Government is studying how it can provide further support to CPF members to plan for their retirement.<\/p>\n

The investment product that will eventually be introduced should \u201cstrike the right balance between risk and return\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

The proposed LRIS would be applicable for CPF members who want to invest but feel they lack the financial expertise and\/or time and resources to actively manage their investments.<\/p>\n

Dr Tan said other CPF members can already invest their savings through a number of low-cost funds under the CPFIS for potentially higher returns.<\/p>\n

According to investment research firm Morningstar, the investment consultant for the CPFIS, all CPFIS funds \u2013 unit trusts and investment-linked insurance products \u2013 had an average one-year return of 11.78 per cent in Singapore dollar terms for the third quarter ended September 2025.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cumulative returns reached 37.03 per cent over three years, equivalent to a return of 10.74 per cent a year.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging Mr Loh\u2019s comment that time in the market is more important than timing the market, Dr Tan said he fully agrees with him.<\/p>\n

However, he added that much also depends on how much time each investor has in the market.<\/p>\n

For instance, if a product was launched recently and an investor had to liquidate his investments during a downturn for his retirement needs, he would have experienced a drop in the investment value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The investor would not have been able to benefit from enough time in the market to ride out the market falls, ultimately impacting his retirement adequacy, Dr Tan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe penultimate objective has always been to safeguard retirement adequacy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

When pressed by Mr Louis Chua (Sengkang GRC) on whether there will be an update in 2026, Dr Tan would not be drawn into giving a specific timeframe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are close to finalising the details,\u201d he said, noting that the CPF Board is reviewing the recommendations made by the CPF advisory panel in 2016.<\/p>\n

Dr Tan added that time has passed and markets have evolved since then, necessitating a deeper look into which suggestions can be incorporated into the LRIS scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professor Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) wanted to find out more about the composition of the investment product and asked if there will be one that is fully geared towards Singapore equities.<\/p>\n

Dr Tan said the construct of the product would take into account different weightages of global equities and bonds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that it will be a glide path, an investment strategy where an investor takes more risks by holding more equities versus bonds when young. Then, as retirement nears, that investor will take less risk by holding more bonds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The investor is essentially gliding towards retirement with the aim of preserving\/protecting his CPF savings as he gets older.<\/p>\n

Apart from investing their CPF savings, members can choose to leave their money in the Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account (SA) to earn the risk-free rate of return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A CPF member who is below 55 would earn 2.5 per cent on his OA savings and 4 per cent on his SA savings, with an extra 1 per cent on the first $60,000 of combined balances. The extra interest is capped at $20,000 for the OA.<\/p>\n

CPF members who are 55 and above would earn 2.5 per cent on the OA and 4 per cent on the Retirement Account, with an extra 2 per cent on the first $30,000 of combined balances and an additional 1 per cent on the next $30,000 of combined balances. The extra interest is capped at $20,000 for the OA.<\/p>\n

Singapore ParliamentMinistry of ManpowerCPFRetirementFinancial planning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SINGAPORE \u2013 CPF members who want to invest their savings in a retirement investment scheme, first announced and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-244268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}