Friday, May 31, 2013

Role of Internal Audit

In many organizations, the Internal Audit is not welcomed by the Operations staff, as the focus was on controls and compliance.  The work can be approached differently to focus on "what is right" rather than "what is wrong". I hope that these points will be useful to help Internal Audit to carry out its role in a constructive manner and their contribution can be welcome.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=830&IID=837

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Bad experience with Standard Chartered Bank - continuing episode

I have very bad experience with Standard Chartered credit cards. It has been a nightmare since I accepted their Visa and Master cards a year ago.

It took more than 6 months for my GIRO to be implemented. My earlier instruction was reported loss and the second set was approved after a long delay.

I was shocked to learn recently that they were only deducting the minimum $50 from my card, and not the full amount that I intended. This allowed them to earn their "interest" at the exorbitant rate of 2% per month.

Their call center said that this was "my instruction" on the form. Their forms were extremely complicated, so it was so easy to make a mistake.


Even their statement is so complicated, it is difficult to know what is being owed to the bank and what is the amount to be paid. They give information about "points" that really confuse the customer.

Getting through to their call center was another big hassle. they asked for my name, NRIC, mobile number, current employer, previous employer and the number of accounts that I had with them.

I instructed to cancel both cards, and they said that I had a balance in one card and it cannot be cancelled. I suspect that they really want to make things difficult for their customer to cancel the card with their tedious process.

I will cancel the cards anyway. I will not take any more card from that bank.

Retire Happy Plan from AXA

Here is an analysis of the Retire Happy plan from AXA. The features are similar to the retirement plans recently launched by several life insurance companies. 

Take a look at the distribution cost and the effect of deduction. They are extremely high. Understand the impact of these charges on your accumulated savings. 

Do the exercise in this paper. 
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=825&IID=832

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