AOP President Dr. Thachapol Kanchanakul said “The PVD Contest has been held for the 8th year now, graced with the presences of honorable professors from Chulalongkorn University and Thammasat University, who will serve as ad-hoc contest committees and will set out the requirements for scoring, as well as rank the participants as had been done every time before. Additionally, this year’s contest will grant a special award for first-time participants. The contest is with the objective to select the perfect provident fund model, with excellent and effective management, who is applying good governance, and who is able to bring about the growth of their investment that would be sufficient enough for their employees’ lives after retirement. The contest is sponsored by various organizations including SEC, the National Savings Fund (NSF), state enterprises, private companies, and investment management companies.”

SEC Deputy Secretary-General Paralee Sukonthaman said “The provident funds are a tool to use for a systematic and long-term saving, with which one can use to prepare for a life after retirement because no matter how much the income one would have after retirement, daily expenses and health-related expenses are ever-present. Apart from the promoting of excellent management for the best of their employees, provident fund committee and investment management companies are encouraged to develop the provident funds up to international standard. We motivate institutional investors, including the provident funds, to invest responsibly, considers the benefits of the community, the environment, and excellent control in management of invested businesses. The use of the I Code principle is also another qualifying criterion for the most excellent provident fund award.”

Criteria include good governance in investment, standard of the supervision and inspection of management for the prosperity of funds, the roles of investment management companies in promoting and providing knowledge to members, and the development of provident funds, as well as the application of I Code is another qualifying factor.”

However, the provident funds that are interested to participate in the contest must have been registered under SEC for more than 3 years and must have been approved by the provident fund committee or the provident fund director to participate in the contest. The contest holds 3 categories which are (1) provident funds of state enterprise, (2) provident funds of private companies, and (3) asset management companies. Both former categories are individual contests, while the third category is a pooled fund contest.

The AOP will appoint an ad-hoc contest committee to oversee the application and the documents, any qualified party will advance to the interview round. The total scores of both rounds will determine the winner and other respective awards, which will be announced and granted on 21 February 2020 at the Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit hotel.

Currently, there are 379 provident funds, with a total number of over 3 million employees, 19,008 employers, and overall net asset value of 1.2 trillion Thai baht.

Any interested party can download the application form and read more details at www.aop.or.th from now until 4 November 2019. 

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Note:

The Provident Fund (PVD) is a voluntary mutual fund between the employers and the employees, which consists of a part of the wage of the employees, called “savings”, and another part from the employers, called contribution.