The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has denied that the names of beneficiaries listed by its account holders have gone missing.

"This issue is obsolete," said EPF senior manager of public relations Nik Affendi Jaffar when contacted.

He was asked to respond to the concerns raised by malaysiakini readers who said that when they checked on their EPF accounts, they found the names of beneficiaries missing.

According to one reader, when he asked an EPF officer about the matter, the latter had said that he too was in the dark.

However, Nik Affendi said this information was never lost.

He explained that EPF is in the process of upgrading the beneficiary records into the computer system.

Check details at HQ

The records still exist in hard copy but as the process is not completed, account holders may not find the information in the computer system, he added.

Until this is completed, he said account holders wishing to check the details of their nominations can only retrieve the information manually at the EPF head office in Kuala Lumpur.

"There are roughly more than 4.2 million accounts and we need time to manually upload all this information," he added.

As of February, only 2.2 million nomination records have been registered into the new system.

Under the new system, members will be able to check details pertaining to beneficiaries at all EPF branches.

The records are expected to be completely uploaded by September.