A total of 4.57 million applications for the i-Citra facility were approved by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) in withdrawal on August 4 with a total of RM19.1 billion.
According to the EPF chief officer, Nurhisham Hussein said the retirement fund had received 4.62 million applications with an approval rate of 99% which included 4.57 million applications.
Around 50,000 applications are still pending while a total of 551 applications have been rejected due to several factors that do not meet the approval requirements.
Total applications amounted to RM19.3 billion and RM19.1 billion was agreed while RM2.3 billion was issued on August 4.
Examining the i-Citra application data, almost 79% of applicants have applied between RM4,001 to RM5,000 and around 21% who applied to make withdrawals of RM1,000 to RM4,000.
Most of the applicants put forward reasons such as reduction of income, to finance daily or monthly expenses, to settle outstanding debts and so on.
This i-Citra withdrawal facility allows EPF members to make withdrawals of up to RM5,000 through Account 2 and Account 1 respectively which will be given within five months and subject to the applicant's eligibility.
To date, the total outflow offered by the EPF through various planned assistance related to Covid-19 has generated an outflow of RM86.2 billion as at 4 August.
These include the reduction of employee contribution rates between April 2020 and December 2021 by RM6.2 billion, i-Lestari (RM20.8 billion), deferment of e-CAP employer contributions (RM200 million), i-Sinar (RM56.7 billion) and Citra (RM2.3 billion)
The EPF expects the total estimated outflow through the program to reach RM117 billion.
