The Social Security Fund (abbreviated to FSS in Macao) said that this year’s interest income of the provident fund individual accounts was transferred to eligible individual accounts on 7th September, with a yield of 0.119% (i.e. the annual interest rate is 1.428%). The income calculation period was from September 2016 to August 2017. Starting today, members of the public can check the balance of their individual accounts by visiting the website of the FSS at www.fss.gov.mo or via the 24-hour interactive voice response hotline at 2823 0230.
The funds of the provident fund individual accounts are individually owned by members of the public, and managed by the FSS in accordance with the provisions of the existing Law No. 14/2012, applying the prudent risk management principles, therefore, getting a return by making time deposits with the banks over the past few years. By the end of August, the total amount of the funds of the provident fund individual accounts was as high as 17.58 billion patacas. As the amount of funds was very large, the FSS was able to secure better time deposit rates － this year's annual interest rate of 1.428% is higher than the current 1-year time deposit rate of 100,000 patacas or more (generally about 0.1875% to 0.9%). The non-mandatory central provident fund system will take effect on 1st January next year. Members of the public who have participated in the joint provident scheme or individual provident fund scheme can enjoy the right to invest the funds in the individual accounts. By then, members of the public may apply for the transfer of government funds to the contribution sub-account or the preserved sub-accounts for investment and capital appreciation in order to earn a return.
The income distributed to an individual account is equal to the sum of the account balance on the last day of each month in the income calculation period. Since 2010, the SAR Government has injected funds into the provident fund individual accounts of eligible residents for eight years in a row. The maximum amount of funds already distributed to each eligible resident is 56,000 patacas in total, and the maximum amount of interest income is 3,959 patacas in total.
For more information about the income distribution of provident fund individual accounts, please visit the website of the FSS at www.fss.gov.moor call 2853 2850 during office hours for enquiries.