Neurotechnologist Rajna Anthony grew up in a traditional family in which money was never discussed. Since her mother was good at managing the family’s finances, money was never an issue. When she got married, however, the lack of financial literacy led her and her husband Maria Pragasam to make bad financial decisions and investments.

The year 1998 marked a significant turning point. Not only did Pragasam lose his job as a senior agency manager at a risk management company, the couple’s investments lost their value when the stock market crashed during the Asian financial crisis. With four young children, the couple struggled to generate sufficient income to get back on their feet.

Pragasam’s sister suggested that Rajna help her husband in his part-time insurance business. She was reluctant at first — even though her husband was an agent, she did not like insurance agents and did not believe in insurance at the time — but she eventually agreed to do so. 

As she worked in a hospital, it was clearly the right place to sell insurance, especially life and health insurance. But the competition was fierce. Every department at the hospital already had two or three insurance agents.

Rajna decided to tap a different market — student nurses. Clearly, no one was targeting this group as they did not make much money and would not be able to afford the high premiums that would make for good commissions. But there were plenty of them. So, she came up with a plan that involved giving free classes on the importance of having enough insurance coverage.

“Every day after work, at 4.30pm, I would take a taxi to the hostel and stay there until 11pm. Not all of them welcomed me. Some nurses would run away the moment they saw me and others would duck behind a fridge — anything to avoid having to listen. Some even slammed their doors in my face,” she recalls.

But Rajna was nothing if not resilient. She persisted in knocking on doors and giving classes, and managed to get 15 clients a day. As she did not have much experience selling insurance, she did not realise just how well she was doing. Her monthly income from selling insurance rose to about RM8,000 in just six months with 500 clients.

“My sales skills improved very quickly. I was able to answer most of their questions. And if I did not know the answer, I checked with my husband and usually got back to them the next day. My clients really appreciated the trouble I took,” she says.

In just 1½ years, Rajna was making RM15,000 a month selling insurance. But she was also feeling the strain of having to juggle her full-time job and her insurance business. 

“I told my head of department that I wanted to resign because I just could not manage it anymore. However, he said [the hospital] really liked my work and asked me to stay on. He offered to promote me and I accepted happily,” she says.

Rajna became head of the paediatric neurotechnology department and life became a lot easier. The income was good and she got an office to herself. The hospital was also kind enough to let her take two afternoons off a week to attend classes on insurance.

“Gradually, I shifted my focus to the doctors. I no longer visited the nurses’ hostel. Instead, I roamed around the hospital in the evenings to talk to specialists. They knew I was a member of the staff, so they did not mind talking to me,” she says.

Both she and her husband attended courses to improve their skills. They included courses in personal insurance, business insurance, life underwriting and even the US-based Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow programme. 

One day, while trying to get more clients, a consultant told Rajna that he did not want to deal with insurance agents; he only wanted to talk to a financial planner. “I had never heard the term ‘financial planner’ so I asked him what it was. He told me to find out for myself, so I did,” she says.

This opened up a whole new world for Rajna and her husband. When they found out what financial planners did, they got really excited. “We decided to enrol for financial planning classes. When I finally got my certification, I went back to the consultant and said, ‘Professor, I am a financial planner now,” she says.

As a certified financial planner, Rajna offered her services to people from all walks of life. One of them — a professor with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia — was impressed by her passion and previous achievements. He offered her the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree in medical sciences majoring in community health and do some research on why Malaysian doctors find it difficult to manage their finances. 

She agreed and set out to meet medical practitioners from all over the country to write her academic paper, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and Satisfaction on Personal Financial Management among Medical Practitioners in Public and Private Medical Services in Malaysia.

The Problem With Middle-Income Earners

People usually associate doctors with wealth and lavish lifestyles. But when Rajna studied how they managed their money, she realised that many of them were struggling financially. 

It was a problem of perception. They felt that being doctors, they naturally had access to a certain lifestyle. Because of this, many did not care to see if they could actually afford their lifestyle based on what they were earning.

They went for expensive meals every day. When they qualified, many of them were offered credit cards, which they took up gleefully. It was more important to live a certain lifestyle than to budget their spending or live within their means. 

The result? She found that many doctors under the age of 35 no longer used credit cards — not because they did not want to, but because they had been blacklisted.

Also, many had been badly advised and were holding financial products that were not suitable for them. “I recorded their cash inflow and outflow and did a very detailed breakdown of where every sen went,” says Rajna.

What she learnt both surprised and horrified her. She found that most of the doctors who made up her sample could not afford a RM500 insurance policy, even one that really suited them, as they had racked up debts and many were hooked up to the gills.

This was a major problem with middle-income earners who thought they were rich and lived accordingly. “Since they have a monthly income, they think they can spend whatever they want and pay at the end of the month. And they do it over and over again, with no thought about their financial future. These are the people we can teach to make better financial decisions for their own good,” says Rajna.

She found that for 99% of the doctors she studied, their outflow was more than their inflow. This seemed to be a trend not only among doctors but also other middle-income earners. That was why she and her husband decided to establish the Banyan Tree Wealth Advisory in 2006. It was not a matter of catering for the rich, but offering interventions for middle-income earners who were getting into serious financial problems.

Rajna and Pragasam established a routine. First, they would do a financial health check to assess the income and expenses of their clients. They would help them work out what their net worth is and come up with financial goals and objectives. She also conducts financial coaching and consultation for those who need it. And many do.

Rajna shares a case study of one of her clients. “A doctor in her 30s, was earning RM8,000 a month, but she had no savings. It was normal for her to spend RM150 a day on eating out. When I questioned her further, I found it was because whenever she went out with friends, she was the one who usually ended up paying. 

“I told her this could not keep happening and she would have to limit herself to spending only RM30 a day on meals. If she spent less than that, she could put the balance in a special container,” she says.

Her client was resistant at first, but she gradually came around because Rajna is nothing if not firm. So, when the doctor went out for meals with her friends, she informed them that she was seeing a financial planner and was not allowed to spend more than RM30 a day. Her friends understood and stopped taking advantage of her good nature.

Doing just this one thing had a knock-on effect on her other behaviours as well. For instance, before this, she would use valet parking. But now, she always looks for the cheapest parking alternative. After a while, she was so used to having extra money to put in the container that when she did not, she felt disappointed with herself. 

“After six months, she came to me and we both counted the money in the container. She had managed to save a whopping RM2,000 from just this one thing alone,” Rajna points out gleefully.

But this was not all. She found that the doctor was using products that were not suitable for her and got her to switch. Now that she was making wiser financial decisions and not spending money the moment it landed in her hands, she managed to save a substantial amount in one year alone.

Rajna says the main problem among middle-income earners is that they compare themselves with people who earn more and aspire to the same lifestyle, even if they cannot afford it. 

“When they see people eating at nice restaurants or buying fancy items, they feel the need to do the same. Even the children — when they go to school, their friends tell them about all the nice places they went to while on holiday, so they come home and ask the parents, ‘When can we go?’ So they feel the need to go on fancy holidays as well,” she says.

They do not do this out of envy, but a lack of awareness because they do not keep track of their expenses and have no idea how each decision affects them. They have no proper planning or financial goals and will spend whatever is on hand, reasoning that they will get paid at the end of the month, so what does it matter?

“I was pleasantly surprised at first to note that most of the doctors aged below 35 did not have a credit card until I discovered why. It was not that they did not want a credit card but because they had been blacklisted for not making their payments. Most of them were offered credit cards when they went to the bank to open an account at the start of their housemanship. It was all downhill after that,” says Rajna.

She blames this easy access to credit on the middle-income earner’s lack of financial management. In her study, she found that the majority of medical practitioners held an average of two credit cards. Also, as their age increased, the worse their credit card management became.

“Some of them even have as many as five credit cards. When I asked them how they planned to pay off their debts, they usually replied that it was a problem they could deal with later. This is a very unhealthy attitude and it is time someone draws attention to it,” she says.

Start Young

Rajna quit her job as a neurotechnologist in 2004 to focus full-time on financial planning and education. She recognises that in many of the cases, her clients were not financially literate. Proper financial training could not start at university. It had to start in the classroom.

So, she established the Banyan Tree Money Academy in 2007 to teach children as young as five years old good financial habits. Among the topics that she teaches are the concept and history of money, bartering, currency, value and budgeting. She gives the children four jars — to save, invest, give and play — because she wants to teach them that each is important. 

To teach children about investing, she provides them the opportunity to invest in chicks — broiler or free-range — because it demonstrates the concept in a visceral manner. Broiler chicks provide more returns but are less hardy than free-range chicks, which exemplifies the concept of risk and reward.

She also highlights the importance of giving back in the education programme. “When you donate, you are blessed. That is why we also teach them why, where, and how they can donate. After the session, we will take them to a home to practise giving back,” she says.

Rajna is pursuing a doctorate in family economics and resource management, majoring in financial planning, at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Her research — The Impact of a Financial Capability Programme on the Financial Wellbeing of Medical Practitioners in Selangor — is currently ongoing. 

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