Participant Experiences
What people say after completing a programme.
The accounts below are from participants who have completed one or more Bayu Permata programmes. They describe their experience in their own words.
Return to HomeWhat Participants Say
Accounts from programme participants.
Rohani Md Isa
Petaling Jaya · April 2025
I joined the introductory programme in April with no particular goal other than to understand where my money was actually going each month. By the end of the third week, I had produced a document that described our household cash flow more clearly than anything I had managed in twenty years of trying on my own.
Programme: The Calm Starting Point
Yusof Abdul Razak
Shah Alam · March 2025
The investment foundations course was more demanding than I had expected — in a good way. I had to read carefully and think carefully. The section on reading fund cost disclosures was particularly useful. I had been holding a unit trust for six years without understanding what I was actually paying in total fees. The programme changed that.
Programme: Considered Investing After Forty
Chong Li Ling
Cheras · April 2025
What I appreciated most was that nobody tried to sell me anything during or after the programme. I have attended financial talks before where the final session was a product presentation. That did not happen here. The facilitator was straightforward about what she knew, what she did not know, and what fell outside the scope of the course.
Programme: Considered Investing After Forty
Nadzri Sulaiman
Subang Jaya · March 2025
I am fifty-three years old and I had never seriously looked at my EPF Account 1 withdrawal options. After the pre-retirement programme, I have a written document that maps out three different approaches for the years between now and sixty. My wife also attended the final summary session and said it was the first time she had understood our retirement picture clearly.
Programme: Considered Pre-Retirement Engagement
Priya Krishnamurthy
Bangsar · April 2025
The introductory programme was shorter than I expected — only three weeks — but the writing exercises made the difference. I found myself actually looking at my bank statements during the week, which I had not done voluntarily in years. My one hesitation before joining was that the evening sessions might be rushed, but the pace was genuinely slow and considered.
Programme: The Calm Starting Point
Ahmad Hafizuddin
Kuala Lumpur · March 2025
I had attended a large financial planning seminar the year before Bayu Permata. The comparison is stark. The seminar had three hundred people in a hall and ended with a table selling investment products. Bayu Permata had twelve people in a room and ended with each of us holding a written record of our own situation. I found it considerably more useful.
Programme: The Calm Starting Point
Case Studies
Three participant journeys, in more detail.
Zarinah Ramli, 47 — Kuala Lumpur
The Calm Starting Point, then Considered Investing After Forty
The Situation
Zarinah had been working in the public sector for twenty years and had a reasonable EPF balance, but had never engaged with her Account 2 options or considered whether her existing savings account placement was appropriate. She described her relationship with her finances as "avoidant — I knew roughly what was there, but I didn't want to look too closely."
What Changed
The introductory programme gave her the first clear picture of her household finances she had produced in years. Six months later, she joined the investment foundations course. She said the most useful single session was the one on reading fund cost disclosures — she realised she had been holding one unit trust whose total expense ratio she had never checked. She moved that holding after the programme.
Three Months Later
She returns to the written document from both programmes roughly once a quarter. "The introductory programme document is still the most useful thing I have from any financial activity I have ever done. It is just my actual numbers, in plain language, with my own handwriting in the margins."
Kelvin Wong, 52 — Damansara
Considered Pre-Retirement Engagement
The Situation
Kelvin and his wife were eight years from their intended retirement. He had an EPF account, a private pension top-up, several unit trusts of varying age, and two insurance policies — one of which he was not certain was still valid. He wanted a coherent picture, not four separate products managed by four separate agents.
Programme Process
The five-month programme started with a complete inventory of all holdings. The facilitator spent the first two sessions simply listening and helping Kelvin catalogue what he had. By month three, one of the insurance policies had been confirmed outdated and discontinued. The midway review produced a twelve-page written summary that Kelvin described as "the first document that showed everything in the same place."
At Programme End
Kelvin left with a written document covering EPF strategy, remaining savings allocation, a simplified insurance position, and a withdrawal sequence mapped across ages 60 to 75. He noted that the pace — one private session per month over five months — was exactly right: "I needed time to think between sessions, not more sessions."
Mariati Nordin, 44 — Puchong
Considered Investing After Forty
The Situation
Mariati had savings she wanted to put to work but had no framework for thinking about investment options. She had received unsolicited recommendations from several sources and felt unable to evaluate any of them. She joined the investment foundations course specifically to acquire that evaluative capacity.
Programme Experience
The eight-week course moved through asset classes, EPF structure, and locally available instruments. Mariati found the section on ETFs particularly new — she had heard of them but not understood how they worked or how to access them through a Malaysian broker. She was one of three participants who asked about Bursa-listed options, which the facilitator addressed in the following session with an extended Q&A.
Six Months Later
Mariati had opened a brokerage account and made a first purchase of a locally listed ETF. She noted the decision had taken several months after the course ended — "I was not in a hurry, and the programme had not made me feel that I should be." She has since referred two colleagues from her department to Bayu Permata.
Reach Us
Contact details for enquiries.
Phone
+60 3-7195 8264Address
235 Jalan Klang Lama
58000 Kuala Lumpur
Office Hours
Mon–Fri: 9am–6pm
Sat: 9am–1pm
In Numbers
Where Bayu Permata stands.
6+
Years operating
Programmes running continuously since 2019
340+
Completions
Participants who completed at least one programme
4.7
Average rating
Collected from post-programme feedback forms
FPAM
Member
Financial Planning Association of Malaysia
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