National Provident Authority

The Problem#

• When a member dies, the Authority must distribute retirement savings across multiple accounts (Ordinary, Special, MediSave, Retirement) to nominated beneficiaries — or according to intestacy rules if no valid nomination exists
• For Muslim members (approximately 15% of cases), distribution falls under AMLA and must follow Shafi’i faraid rules as determined by the Syariah Court
• The Authority processes approximately 20,000 death benefit cases per year, representing S$2.8 billion (£1.7 billion) in distributions
• Nominations made under the pre-2011 system have different validity rules than current nominations
• Manual Syariah Court liaison adds 4-6 weeks to affected Muslim member cases

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Model each member’s retirement savings as asset.json entries with category: "financial" and subcategory values for each account type
• Capture nominations in nonprobate-transfer.json with transferType: "cpf_nomination" — these pass outside the estate directly to nominees
• Use the singapore-malaysia extension’s SingaporeISADistribution for non-Muslim intestate cases and SingaporeAMLADistribution for Muslim members with school: "shafii" and a faraidRef linking to the Syariah Court certificate
• Apply the islamic-succession extension’s heirClassifications[] with heirClass values (e.g. "wife", "son", "daughter", "mother"), fixedShareFraction (Quranic shares like "1/8" for a wife with children), and residuaryClass
• Use awlApplied and raddApplied boolean fields to record proportional adjustments when shares do not sum to exactly 100%
• Cross-reference member records using person.json identifiers (NRIC via common/identifier.json)

The Integration#

• Import and API: the Authority accepts INHERIT documents from estate administrators (solicitors, trustee companies) via a secure endpoint
• The system validates the document, cross-references member records, and auto-calculates distribution amounts
• Distribution confirmations are returned as notification.json events

The Business Case#

• Death benefit processing time drops from 21 working days to 7 across 20,000 cases per year
• Accelerates approximately S$2.8 billion (£1.7 billion) in annual death benefit distributions
• Automated AMLA/faraid routing for Muslim members eliminates the 4-6 week manual Syariah Court liaison affecting 15% of cases
• Automated nomination validation catches lapsed or invalid nominations immediately rather than mid-process

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. Estate administrator submits a death benefit claim with paper documentation — death certificate, nomination record, identity documents
2. Authority staff manually verify the nomination against member records and check validity rules (pre-2011 vs current)
3. For Muslim members, staff liaise with the Syariah Court to obtain a faraid certificate — adding 4-6 weeks
4. Distribution amounts are calculated manually for each account type
5. Funds are released after an average of 21 working days

With INHERIT:

1. Estate administrator submits an INHERIT document via the API, containing structured nomination data, heir classifications, and identity information
2. System auto-validates the nomination, identifies whether AMLA or ISA applies, and cross-references member records
3. Distribution amounts are calculated automatically — including faraid shares for Muslim members
4. Funds are released after an average of 7 working days