PM Lee said that it is difficult to regulate the banks more tightly
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/regulating-banks-tightly-not-always-feasible-pm-lee-20121008
The other extreme, which he seemed to favor, is to let the market takes care of bad behavior of the banks.
There is a middle path. The regulators can be more active in regulating the products offered by the banks. Many of the financial products are bad, and should be stopped in the first place. Paul Vocker recently said that the only useful innovation in the financial sector is the invention of the ATM. He suggested that all the other financial innovations are dubious. Link.
The Frank Dodd bill on financial regulation and protection of consumers mandate the regulators to approve plain vanilla financial products. This is a necessary step.
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/regulating-banks-tightly-not-always-feasible-pm-lee-20121008
The other extreme, which he seemed to favor, is to let the market takes care of bad behavior of the banks.
There is a middle path. The regulators can be more active in regulating the products offered by the banks. Many of the financial products are bad, and should be stopped in the first place. Paul Vocker recently said that the only useful innovation in the financial sector is the invention of the ATM. He suggested that all the other financial innovations are dubious. Link.
The Frank Dodd bill on financial regulation and protection of consumers mandate the regulators to approve plain vanilla financial products. This is a necessary step.
The hands off stand that MAS had been adopting is strange and frankly irresponsible.
ReplyDeleteAre we so sophisticated after hardly half a century of independence ?
Or are we trying hard to attract all & sundry to gamble? Sorry, it is more politically correct to call it "gaming".
I didn't hear HSA say that it is difficult to regulate the different medical devices in the market. They have to be approved by the HSA. I didn't hear Yacoob say that it is difficult to implement a code of conduct for the Internet and spthen stop trying (I do not support it as a politicised tool).
ReplyDeleteWhere there's a will, there's a way. Where there's no will, there are many excuses.
Doubly confirmed now, right from the horse's mouth, here, you invest at your own peril, and the newest cowboy frontier town outside America, i.e. Singapore.
ReplyDeleteRather invest in Maybank, and bank with Maybank.
Simply, when you lose money or get cheated in dubious investments that are vetted by MAS, cry daddy, cry mummy, it's your own funeral.
Dun expect MAS to bale you out.
May I know why invest in Maybank? How different are they from the rest of the banks here?
ReplyDeleteFor ordinary folks, place your money with POSB, not DBS, same family member, but different class. If DBS gets whacked by market forces, Govt would be forced to bail only POSB, or maybe not, but still safer to bank with this "People's Bank".
ReplyDeleteAmong the most dangerous Foreign banks are Citi Bank and Chartered Bank, the latter with a large foreign shareholder base, come to the crutch, British Govt would abandon it. Think why Temasek is quietly trying to divest Chartered,
starting with selling Bonds but payment with Chartered shares.
But Chinese banks like Bank of China and ICBC are a safer bet, China won't abandon their own banks. Same logic with Maybank.