Tan Kin Lian's Blog: HKMA vs MAS

Thursday, October 09, 2008

HKMA vs MAS

Dear Mr. Tan,

Both my wife and I bought Minibond series 1, 5 & 6 from Maybank. We are near retiring age and now very 'gek sim' and dare not hope to get even portion out of our investment. The distributors (banks) must be responsible since they did not scrutinize the product packaging before selling to innocent laymen like us.

This akin to selling Slim 10 slimming pill. And as you already knew, the distributor was charged in court and made to compensate an innocent victim. Therefore as I have said, the distributors should be responsible for mis-representation of their products and to pull wool over our eyes.

It was not greed as some people have said. We are just trying to make our money work harder to increase wealth for our retirement and to beat the inflationary rate of 7%. The interest paid by the Minibond was 4 to 5% and these were unable to cover the inflation rate. We have to pursue for the return of our investment albeit a lesser amount.

Our govt. is seem to be standing with folded arms behind the scene and not being proactive to help the affected citizen and which is not the case in HK. The HK govt is taking a hard stand on the banks for the return of her citizen investment. What is our PAP govt stand on this matter...do nothing? So much for the votes on PAP!!!!
My vote goes to the opposition, come next election.

TTH

18 comments:

Anonymous said...: The rich ones hv the pte bankers to advise them to stay out.
The fin. engineer /smart ones know to stay out.
The powerful / well connected ones were advised to stay out.

The poor & ignorant aunties, uncles and retirees become the easy pray.
After lossing their life-savings / hard-earned money, they are still being accused of "greedy",
"deserved it", "stupid, buyer beware"..... Please have some "heart" for these poor victims.
Only very few people like Mr. Tan are willing to help. You deserve our respect.; October 09, 2008 11:55 PM
Anonymous said...: TTH

I can truely share your feeling. We are in the same boat.

I like your analogy of Slim 10 slimming pill. The case exploded after someone died.

Hope,the President,PM, MM, SM, Ministers, MP, NMP... the government could SINCERELY look into this problem before sad thing happen.; October 09, 2008 11:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Our MPs showed concern for plight of jobless foriegn workers with work permit. But for nearly a thousand of Singaporeans, who have lost their life savings through misrepresented investment in our FIs, I have yet to hear any MPs coming out publicly to lent their voice on this issue of misrepresentaion by the FIs.; October 10, 2008 12:05 AM
Anonymous said...: the garment is in every bank. don't think they want to shoot their foot.; October 10, 2008 12:07 AM
Anonymous said...: One NMP stood out to speak for gays and Lesbrians and asked governemnt to change the law. Somebody very high up has to come out to answer.

Is it what out government good at?

Today, our topic is silent, completely silent. MAS is a toothless tiger. The bankers are laughing at us. Where are our respectful political "Leaders". As if there is No government! Where is our TAX money go to.; October 10, 2008 12:25 AM
Anonymous said...: In the Hong Kong case, the Democratic (opposition) party MPs are supporting the minibond victims. In Singapore I don't hear our opposition MPs landing support for our own victims. Perhaps Singapore needs more vocal MPs who are willing to fight for their supporters.; October 10, 2008 12:41 AM
Anonymous said...: In spore, the govt is too busy going round the world advsng others what to do??????; October 10, 2008 12:49 AM
Anonymous said...: You have all been warned about our govt letting in of foreign sharks who take the local guppies as lunch. But our govt still let them in. Instead of protecting Singaporeans interest, they can still say that if you vote for the opposition, Singapore will be ruined in 5 years. I think what they mean is they will be ruined if you vote in the wrong party.; October 10, 2008 1:52 AM
Anonymous said...: In HK, all political parties support the victims, including the usually pro-government ones. The Legislative Council can force top government officials and bankers to answer their questions publicly. That made the officials really nervous, they cannot stay out or pretend to be neutral anymore. "Drastic" protest of hundreds of victims led by an opposition party outside Bank of China last Sunday was an important event. Heard there may be an anti-victim protest this Sunday, though.
DBS said the victims will have to prove DBS misled them ---- so therein lies the burden of proof!; October 10, 2008 7:09 AM
Anonymous said...: In our case I believe the S'pore gov't will only react when some old folks among us who have lost all their life savings, go into depression and commit suicide (i mean consecutively at least 2 or 3 cases) then only they will come out of the shell and TALK!!! But for now its "you die your own business"; October 10, 2008 10:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Yes, why should our ministers and MP care about all the victims especially the seniors, they are enjoying their life with big chunk of salary per year, which we pay for them from our income tax, increased ERP,electricity, bus fare, etc. Will definitely not vote for PAP anymore.
Sad and broken heart; October 10, 2008 10:53 AM
Anonymous said...: My vote WILL NOT go to the PAP next election for ignoring me this time.; October 10, 2008 1:02 PM
Anonymous said...: DBS, Hong Kong, announced they will pay in full if proven they misled the investors on HK news today. Why they say nothing in Sgp? Maybe they need to seek govt approval. In Hong Kong, they think out of the box. In Sgp, they think inside the box and get paid more.....; October 10, 2008 1:14 PM
siewkhim said...: Not voting for the PAP will not matter to them. They will still run the government.

Why so stupid to buy the structure product shits?

If those structure shits make money for you, you will say how clever you were.

Now you got cheated, you want the PAP to help??; October 10, 2008 2:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr. Tan Kin Lian, I salute you. Singapore needs more TANKINLIANS like your goodself to lend a helping hand to helpless people like us.

Don't expect the govt. to step in 'cos they are all busy cracking their heads to look everywhere to increase their revenue at our expense.

Opposition for me from now on.

Just a housewife.; October 10, 2008 2:30 PM
Anonymous said...: I read with much interest about this mini bonds crisis and the petition to ask the PAP government for help.Before i write in my cooment,i would like to state that i am NOT a PAP government and neither am i a supporter of the opposition.I am just a netural person.And i am not rubbing salt into the wounds of people who have lost their life savings.(I too lost a certain sum of money a few years back so i feel the pain and know what are all these investors who lost their money going through).This is just my personal opinion.Please do not flame me.

I think even if with the petition,chances of the garment helping those 1000 plus investors to get back their money is very slim.Why?Simple?A few reasons.1)Some of the banks that sold the mini bonds etc series belong to Temasek group which in turn belong to the garment.So even if there is some wrongdoing,the garment will not shoot their own foot.
2)If this time the garment were to help those 1000 plus investors,then in future such a thing happen and people cry out to the garment for help again,u think the garment will help?It's just the same case for the foreign workers dormtiory at serangoon gardens.The garment ask for those residents's feedback but in the end,they still go ahead with the plan.Bcoz the garment knows that if they allow 1 time,the next thing will happen again.
3)Someone comment about MAS vs HKMAS and that the hk invesotrs who lost money intend to stage a protest march to voice their displeasure.Over here,the moment u stage a protest,u are breaking the law.So how to compare here with hk???
4)Someone about not voting for the PAP in the next election.U think the garment care about the 1000 votes??it's not even 1% of the population.And does anybody here know y the garment allow all these foreigners in to be sg citizens?So that when come election time,all these 'foreign' sg citizens will vote for the PAP as the pap also know many sg people are pissed off with them for the high cost of living etc.And all these 'foreign' sg citizens come in,they enjoy subsidy etc when buying HDB flats.Much better lives than their origional countries.

5)Lastly,the garment never ask those investors to invest in the first place.When u all make money,u all just happy go lucky.Now lose money,accuse here and there.; October 10, 2008 10:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Actually, We as the victims in HK is not much better than the victims in Singapore. It's true that the political party DPHK and Civic party did some works but I really doubt that the bank will redempt the money to the victims easily. Today, the deputy CEO of HKMA said that even if the banks were proved to be cheating to the customers, they will have no rights to enforce the bank to redempt the money back to the victims.

Afterall, the result is the same all works been done is useless.; October 11, 2008 6:40 PM
Anonymous said...: I am a neutral party for this whole mess. As a financial engineer myself, I see the potential risk in some of these retail note programs and have generally avoided the dodgy ones.

I won't one bamboo stick capsize all the ship. I think there are banks that manage the structured deposit domain fairly well and tries to protect the investors.

Investors have to understand that to earn extra return, one has to take certain risk. Everyone seems to use the term 'bond' as an entirely risk free product but the fact is bond is subject to the credit risk of issuers, and in the unlikely event an issuer default the bond is still going to lose its value.

Anyway I had an interesting case versus one of the local retail bank recently and I successfully fought for the losses to be refunded to my parent in law. You can read the event here:

http://forums.sgfunds.com/viewtopic.php?t=9731

This might not fully help those people in this fiasco, but at least it shows investors can fight for their rights to be protected. Documentation traces are important.; October 14, 2008 12:17 PM