Agensi Kaunseling dan Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) is committed to enhance its digital customer experience through its website which now serves as a one-stop centre that hosts all access points to AKPK’s services, resources and information.
Since its establishment in 2006, AKPK has provided financial advisory to more than a million Malaysians in guiding them towards making sound financial decisions, while as many as 400,000 of them have further enrolled in AKPK’s Debt Management Programme (DMP) for debt restructuring.
In 2011, AKPK began to play an important role as the lead agency in spearheading financial education initiatives that target adult consumers, as stipulated in the Financial Sector Blueprint (2011-2020).
In 2019, AKPK was appointed as one of the members of the Financial Education Network (FEN) which is part of the Malaysia National Strategy for Financial Literacy (2019-2023), to elevate the financial literacy of Malaysians and to promote responsible behaviour and rational attitudes. FEN is spearheaded by Bank Negara Malaysia and Securities Commission Malaysia.
Beginning in 2020, AKPK’s mandate has also expanded to serving Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as well.
AKPK’s CEO, Azaddin Ngah Tasir, explained that AKPK is part of the ecosystem to elevate the financial well-being of households and businesses. In addition to the well-established debt restructuring programme, AKPK is also very instrumental in providing financial education as a pre-emptive measure for Malaysians to build financial resilience.
Azaddin added, “In carrying out our major role in rejuvenating Malaysians’ financial resilience, we have worked on making ourselves a trusted financial partner through all our contact points with the customers so that people would come to us readily, whenever they need peace of mind on money matters.
For this purpose, we intend to be highly accessible at any time and anywhere for our customers. And, this can only be made possible through digital technology.”
AKPK’s website is part of this strategic vision which now provides easy round-the-clock access to all of AKPK’s offerings, even on mobile devices. It is designed to provide easy-to- find information for the public and convenient dashboards for existing customers to manage multiple AKPK’s services—all at one time and from one site.
As an important branding mechanism that will put and keep AKPK in the minds of households and SMEs, individuals from the household and SME sectors will be able to find guidance and solutions from the website easily for any financial management issues. They include tools that can help individuals better manage their finances including business finances such as AKPK’s online bookkeeping toolkit for small businesses.
AKPK’s aim of having an appealing and functional website is to have visitors habitually search for information, learning and support. This would assist AKPK’s efforts in getting more individuals to adopt good values and money habits, take pre-emptive measures, and seek help and advice, immediately upon the early signs of financial distress. This correct financial behaviour helps to avoid over-indebtedness that could lead to major issues including bankruptcy and serves as a foundation towards creating a financial-savvy society.
Members of the public can visit the website at akpk.org.my for information, guidance and solutions to all of their financial management needs.
AKPK in Brief
AKPK provides Financial Education services that can be used by all individual households as well as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). These services can be accessed from the power.akpk.org.my portal which provides various financial education modules as well as the ask.akpk.org.my microsite for various financial learning materials—all available online. AKPK also provides financial management talks to private and public organisations.
In addition, AKPK also provides financial advisory services to those facing problems in loan repayment and offers assistance through the Debt Management Programme (DMP) for individuals, and the Small Debt Resolution Scheme (SDRS) for SMEs and microenterprises. Through this programme and scheme, AKPK helps to draw up a loan repayment plan that suits the current ability of the borrower/customer with the agreement of the financial institutions involved.
All of AKPK’s financial advisory and debt management services are free and no agents or third parties are appointed to engage with the public on behalf of AKPK. The public is advised to contact AKPK directly and not be deceived by service offerings that come with additional fees/charges from third parties claiming to be AKPK agents.
Information about financial management including guides and links to all AKPK services can also be found by visiting AKPK’s official social media page, i.e. @AKPKofficial on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and most recently, TikTok and LinkedIn.
All access to AKPK’s services and resources, including financial education portal (POWER! Portal) and microsite (askAKPK), are available on AKPK’s website. Visit www.akpk.org.my.
