Dear Mr.Tan
Today's news reported that the regulator is curbing the loan limit to
35 years with some other restrictions in the approval process. This
action came after our MND Minister Khaw commented the 50-year loan
tenure as a 'gimmick'.
This makes me wonder whether such implementations by Financial
institutions does need any approval from the regulator? If yes, sad
to say this has short lived. What can we learn from here?
In our fast moving society and especially in Singapore, companies and
financial institutions are forced to be creative and to come up with
innovative products for consumers, be they good or 'bad'.
Our children who have just graduated with 1st class honors or under
scholarships or with MBA, may be the ones assigned to approve these
products. Due to their lack of experience and the convincing papers
put up be these financial institutions, they just approved the
products.
In the past we have the Lehman Brothers and Minibonds saga, off late
we saw the Profitable Plots, Genneve Gold and now the 35-year loan.
Singapore is well known for her very regulated financial system and
such processes has resulted in consumers being affected and now
redress need to be action by the the law or legal processes which are
costly for consumers.
What Singapore need is a pool of experts who have retired from the
industry to be in a product approval advisory board. The authorities
could tap on their views before approving their products. Like
Warren Buffett, people still sought his advise at his age. In
Singapore we have a large pool of these experts who through whatever
reasons, their views are not sought.
It is no point approving a product and sales made to consumers, than
curb the product. In some instances too many agencies involved eg
Police, CPIB, CAD etc before action can be taken.
Moving forward, what Singapore need is pro-active agencies.
David Soh
Today's news reported that the regulator is curbing the loan limit to
35 years with some other restrictions in the approval process. This
action came after our MND Minister Khaw commented the 50-year loan
tenure as a 'gimmick'.
This makes me wonder whether such implementations by Financial
institutions does need any approval from the regulator? If yes, sad
to say this has short lived. What can we learn from here?
In our fast moving society and especially in Singapore, companies and
financial institutions are forced to be creative and to come up with
innovative products for consumers, be they good or 'bad'.
Our children who have just graduated with 1st class honors or under
scholarships or with MBA, may be the ones assigned to approve these
products. Due to their lack of experience and the convincing papers
put up be these financial institutions, they just approved the
products.
In the past we have the Lehman Brothers and Minibonds saga, off late
we saw the Profitable Plots, Genneve Gold and now the 35-year loan.
Singapore is well known for her very regulated financial system and
such processes has resulted in consumers being affected and now
redress need to be action by the the law or legal processes which are
costly for consumers.
What Singapore need is a pool of experts who have retired from the
industry to be in a product approval advisory board. The authorities
could tap on their views before approving their products. Like
Warren Buffett, people still sought his advise at his age. In
Singapore we have a large pool of these experts who through whatever
reasons, their views are not sought.
It is no point approving a product and sales made to consumers, than
curb the product. In some instances too many agencies involved eg
Police, CPIB, CAD etc before action can be taken.
Moving forward, what Singapore need is pro-active agencies.
David Soh
3 comments:
I guess the NatCon can address this gap, if only the PM is willing and able to garner support, both within and outside of his party.
Sad that after so many years of Independence, we are still a society wary of wiser men or women that do not carry a PAP accreditation.
Govt can't cope with the work, so when problems arise, they resort to stop gaps or do damage control, to try to control the situation.
The PAP Govt is becoming that inefficient and incompetent.
To me and to many people it is obvious that most of the alternative investments being offered in areas such as Land Banking, Gold and Plantations are scams. The small print may protect the company but the sales claims from commission based salespeople are outrageous. If you challenge these companies they either say they do not have to reveal their trade secrets, they are not responsible for individual sales claims or they threaten legal action. It should be possible to challenge these companies in public without fear of lawsuit. If individual salespeople make false claims the company should be responsible for correcting those claims. If there is no real possible opportunity for return the company should not be allowed to operate.
The government should not and probably will not approve investments. This would make the government responsible for all investments which would remove genuine but high risk investments from the market.
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