Marketed to Asians

Mr. Tan,

It suddenly struck me that I should share a nugget of the telephone conversation between my Financial Adviser and I which happened about 2 weeks ago.

My FA had unwittingly revealed to me that, after Lehman Bros went bust, the financial institute she is attached to found out that the structured products were protected from the US investors. She added that they were only marketed to investors in Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore, apparently because these predominantly Chinese cities have cash rich citizens with a money-saving habit. I could tell that she was insinuating that Lehman knew very well then that those were unworthy and dangerous products for their own people. But of course, the "reason" cited for not allowing US investor participation was "owing to tax reasons". Even the term "Minibond" was coined to deceive the unsuspecting investors they had intended to court in this part of the world.

From the above information, I arrive at the conclusion that we Asians have been bullied, and taken advantage of by the faltering American financial giants. A large number of Asians have been suckered, MAS and the FIs here too have been suckered, having not done thorough research before letting onto our shores such dubiously-named, out-to-deceive investment products. In my opinion, we were all fooled BIG TIME!

Why should this Singaporean group of ill-fated investors be pushed to moan, groan, cry foul and battle their way through to convince everyone that they were indeed innocent victims bearing the brunt of a spectacular con job. Why should they be made to bear a substantial loss of their investment capital, made up of their hard-earned life savings?

SF