The Finance Ministry plans to introduce a pension lottery to promote retirement savings.
Deputy Finance Minister Paopoom Rojanasakul said the ministry is proposing a policy to combine lottery purchases with long-term savings called the National Savings Lottery scheme or pension lottery.
The money spent on lottery tickets is invested in the National Savings Fund (NSF) and buyers receive their money back upon reaching retirement age.
The NSF plans to issue digital lottery tickets worth 50 baht each to members of the fund who are insured under Section 40 of the Social Security Fund as well as workers in the informal sector, with a maximum purchase of 3,000 baht per month.
Buyers can try their luck while having some of their lottery costs directly deposited into their NSF accounts. If there is no winner for a certain month, prizes roll over to the next month.
Lottery tickets are available for purchase every day, with prizes to be drawn every Friday at 5pm. There are five first prizes of 1 million baht and 10,000 second prizes of 1,000 baht.
Buyers can withdraw their accumulated lottery savings upon retirement at age 60.
Mr Paopoom said the scheme is expected to be introduced in six months to a year, aiming to address the problem of low-income earners with middling retirement savings.
The Pheu Thai Party proposed this policy to deal with inadequate retirement savings among informal workers.
The policy is expected to help increase NSF members to 16-17 million, rising from the current level of 3 million members.
He said it is a cost-effective policy to nudge informal workers to become members of the NSF in preparation for their retirement.
The government plans to use a budget of 700 million baht per year to motivate people to increase their savings, while the budget is 400-500 billion baht per year to fund living allowance payments to elderly people.
