For all my Bumiputera friends out there, congratulations — you have access to what might be the most generous investment opportunity of all time:

Every Bumiputera in Malaysia has the privilege to invest up to RM 200,000 into a special form of Amanah Saham, called Amanah Saham Bumiputera. You don’t pay any fees to invest in it, you don’t pay any charges when you withdraw your money, and it’s consistently given higher returns than other Amanah Sahams. What’s there not to like? (Unless you jelly…)

ASB is so special that banks will even give you 100% loans to invest in it, called ASB financing.

Amanah Saham are “Trust Funds” (similar to Unit Trusts) created by a government-linked investment company, PNB. And to me — these are some of the most underrated investments in Malaysia.

What PNB does is, they’ll take money from you and me, combine it into a monster (think billions of Ringgit) account — and then use that money to invest in things like stocks and bonds. And because they’re really good at investing, they make good money, and then pay it out (dividends) to you and me.

There are two types of Amanah Saham funds: Fixed-price funds and variable-price funds.