About Hikmah
A place to think about money — without being sold anything
Hikmah was built for Singapore adults who have reached a stage of life where the financial questions matter more, and the available answers seem designed for someone else.
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How Hikmah came to be
Hikmah began in 2019 when a small group of Singaporeans who had spent careers in financial services decided to do something different. They had spent years advising clients on products, watching households make large decisions without adequate preparation. What they saw, repeatedly, was not a lack of money but a lack of a quiet, unconflicted space to think.
The name Hikmah — a word shared across several of Singapore's communities, meaning wisdom that comes from careful reflection rather than speed — was chosen deliberately. The founding group wanted to signal from the outset that this was not another platform for fast answers or quick transactions.
The office at Cross Street opened in early 2020. The first cohort of the five-week introduction was small — fourteen participants who sat around a single table on weekday evenings. The format has not changed much since. The groups are larger now, and there are more programmes, but the pace and the principle remain the same.
Hikmah does not sell investment products. It does not receive referral fees from financial institutions. It does not have a brokerage arm or an advisory licence that might create a reason to steer participants in a particular direction. The programmes are funded entirely by course fees.
This structure was a deliberate choice. The founding group had seen too many education providers whose curriculum quietly served a commercial interest. Hikmah's curriculum is written to help participants understand their choices — not to prepare them to receive a recommendation from the programme's financial partners.
— Hikmah founding note, 2019
Our mission: to help Singapore households in their middle decades understand their finances clearly enough to make decisions they feel at ease with.
The Team
The people who lead the programmes
All Hikmah facilitators have backgrounds in financial services or financial research and have chosen to move into education full time.
Rashidah Hamid
Lead Facilitator — Investment Programmes
Fourteen years in fixed-income research at a regional bank before joining Hikmah. Leads the nine-week investment course and writes the course reading materials.
Suresh Kumar
Facilitator — Household Finance
Former personal finance writer and CPF specialist. Leads the five-week introduction course and develops the plain-language reading materials for participants who prefer paper.
Lim Wei Ting
Facilitator — Family Conversations Track
Background in estate planning and mediation. Leads the private Family Conversations Track, helping households approach difficult topics at a pace that suits them.
How We Work
Standards we hold ourselves to
These are not aspirational statements. They describe practical decisions that affect how every programme is designed and delivered.
No product referrals
Hikmah does not maintain commercial relationships with fund managers, brokers, insurers or banks. Facilitators are not permitted to recommend specific products to participants, inside or outside sessions.
Personal data handled carefully
Contact details are used only to communicate about the programme enrolled in. They are not shared with third parties, including financial institutions. Session content shared in private programmes remains confidential.
Facilitator standards
All Hikmah facilitators have at least ten years of experience in a financially relevant field. They undergo an annual curriculum review and are required to update their knowledge of Singapore financial regulations each year.
Curriculum reviewed annually
Course materials are reviewed at the start of each calendar year against current MAS regulations, CPF policy updates and changes to Singapore tax rules. Participants receive updated materials when they are produced.
Plain language commitment
All written materials are tested for readability with participants who have no financial background. If a concept cannot be explained plainly, the explanation is rewritten rather than simplified to the point of inaccuracy.
Feedback acted upon
Every participant receives a short feedback form at the end of their programme. Responses are read by the founding team and influence curriculum decisions for the following cohort. Specific concerns are followed up personally.
Household financial education in Singapore — what Hikmah offers
Singapore has a well-developed financial infrastructure — CPF, HDB, SRS, Singapore Savings Bonds, a range of listed investment trusts — but the decisions surrounding these tools are rarely straightforward. A household in its forties faces questions that interact with one another: how much to keep in CPF, whether the family home belongs in an investment calculation, how to hold enough in reserve without leaving money idle, and how to begin the conversation with an ageing parent about their own arrangements.
Hikmah's programmes address these questions in sequence and without rushing participants toward conclusions. The five-week Money and the Middle Decades course gives a household the vocabulary and the overview it needs to see its own situation clearly. The nine-week investment course goes further, covering Singapore-specific investment vehicles with enough depth that a participant can evaluate what they are being offered by others.
The Family Conversations Track addresses the dimension of finance that most courses leave out entirely: the conversation. Many households carry significant financial arrangements — property, insurance, CPF nominations, wills — that have never been fully discussed among the people they concern. The six-session private programme creates the conditions for those conversations to happen, with a facilitator present to keep the discussion grounded and to provide information where it is needed.
All Hikmah content is set in the Singapore context. Foreign examples, international frameworks and generic advice are set aside. Every session uses Singapore-specific numbers, Singapore-regulated products and Singapore legal structures. Participants leave with knowledge they can apply to their own situation on Monday morning.
Join a Programme
Find the programme that fits your household
Write to us with a brief description of your situation and we will tell you which programme is likely to be the most useful place to start.
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