By Andy Heong
Azaddin Ngah Tasir
Since its inception in April 2006, the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) has provided debt counselling services to 364,248 individuals.
A total of 8,502 people with debts amounting to RM354.2 million have successfully exited from AKPK’s Debt Management Programme (DMP) since the agency’s inception in April 2006.
According to AKPK chief executive officer Azaddin Ngah Tasir during a financial literacy programme launch in partnership with Visa Malaysia today, “a total of 136,733 individuals have enrolled in AKPK’s DMP.”
“As of end-August 2015, 15.8%, or 19,721 consumers, in our DMP falls in the 20-30 years old age group,” added Azaddin.
From Jan 1, 2015 to Aug 31, 2015, a total of 54,585 individuals attended counselling at AKPK. This compared to 61,172 individuals for the whole of 2014. Of those that attended counselling, a total of 15,238 individuals have joined the DMP for the first eight months of 2015 as compared to 20,624 for the whole of 2014.
As part of its efforts to educate Malaysians on responsible financial and monetary management, AKPK is focusing on educating young Malaysians before they start working.
“As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, we are looking to build a solid foundation by educating them on the concepts of financial management, promote effective financial habits and inadvertently, prevent young adults from falling into the debt trap,” said Azaddin.
AKPK, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank Negara Malaysia, was created to provide free services to Malaysians advice and assistance in managing their finances and debts.
The agency provides services in financial education, counselling and the DMP to assist individuals to reschedule or restructure their loans and/or outstanding credit card balances that are due to financial service providers under the purview of Bank Negara.
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