KUCHING: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) targets 100 percent of employers in Sabah and Sarawak to use the e-payment facility for contribution purposes by year’s end.
EPF Contribution Depart-ment Senior General Manager, Azmi Awang said EPF was striving to raise awareness of the employers in Sabah and Sarawak to use e-payment electronic services in these two states, which are at the bottom list of states currently utilising them.
He said at present 68 percent of employers in Sabah used the e- payment services and in Sarawak 69 percent, adding that the 100 percent could be achieved with aggressive promotions being carried out.
“The use of electronic payments is proven to be not only quick, easy and economical, but it is more efficient as the payment can be made at any time without waiting for office hours,” he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama at Sarawak EPF office here yesterday.
In addition, he said payments could be credited directly to the accounts of members promptly compared to manual payment that took about one month previously before it could be credited to the members’ accounts.
Azmi said the use of electronic payments in EPF has started since 2013 but, at that time, the promotion was focused on filling up electronic forms and e-payment promotions began to accelerate in 2015 in line with the success of the 100 per cent EPF electronic form usage.
He said the e-payment promotion among employers also needed to be intensified because starting this July, EPF would no longer accept payment over its counters and although payment could be made at the banks, they would be charged a certain amount by the banks.
As for new employers, he said at present they were required to use the e-payment services for their dealings.
He said in line with Sarawak’s emphasis on the digital economy, the use of e-payments was in line with the state government’s vision to promote the use of online facilities in daily affairs.
As part of promotion efforts in Sarawak, EPF invited about 150 employers to attend the special e-payment briefing sessions yesterday and in Miri today while similar sessions would be held in Bintulu and Sibu on Wednesday and Thursday, he added.
