Review investment regulations

Due to the prevailing low interest rates, consumers look for investment

opportunities that allow them to earn a return that can at least offset

inflation.

Many of them were unfortunately badly advised to invest in risky products,

such as the credit linked notes, currently linked notes and other 

structured products based on derivatives. In most cases, the bad advice

was given by the relationship managers working for the banks that they 

had trusted for years.

Some of them were misled into investing in unregulated products, such as

the "guaranteed pay-back" schemes that offer a high return. Recently, 

Geneva and Profitable Plots were raided by the Commercial Affairs Department

for alleged fraudulent practices in promoting these types of schemes.

The Financial Services Consumer Association have been educating the public

about the merits of investing in an index fund, such as the 

STI Exchange Traded Fund that is offered in the Singapore Exchange. This is 

a low cost, diversified fund that is invested mainly in blue chips, and is suitable

for conservative, risk adverse investors to invest for the long term.

Another suitable type of investment is in an insurance linked policy that is offered by

life insurance companies, except that most of these products in the market 

take away 3% to 4% from the yield earned on the investment each year, compared to 

0.3% from the index fund. The high charges in the investment linked policies

make them unsuitable for the public.

While the index fund is the best type of investment for the conservative investors, 

the regulations imposed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore

make it almost impossible for the general public to invest in this asset class. 

The investor is required to pass an online test that requires knowledge of warrants, options,

futures, exchange traded notes, extended settlement contracts, discount certificates and 

callable bull and bear contracts. 

Although I am qualified as an actuary and have over 30 years of investment experience, 

I am not familiar with some of these investment products and would most certainly advice 

the general public to avoid them. Why educate them in the products that should be avoided?

If investors are denied the option to invest in the index fund, some are likely to end up 

speculating in penny stocks and  questionable investments, including overseas stocks, that 

are not suitable for long term investors.

I urge the Monetary Authority of Singapore to review their existing regulation and make it easy

for the general public to invest in the cash-based indexed funds that do not have nay leverage

or derivatives.

Freedom to voice your views

I am posting this comment by Clara Hwang (with her permission), and have done some minor editing. The original comment was posted in my Facebook (www.facebook.com/kinlian)

I am a Singaporean who moved to Aussie at the age of 26. I agree with absolutely everything Pamela says.

Certainly, there  are problems with every system in every country. There doesn't exist a flawless system that every citizen is happy with.

However, I feel that the biggest problem with Singapore is that the most basic needs, food (eg ntuc, hawker centers), transportation (mrt, taxis, buses etc), healthcare and so on have been monopolized or in some way or another linked back to the government.

It is designed to be money making enterprises, which is not entirely a bad thing, but one wonders at the end of the day, who does it truly benefit now that problems are arising and no one wants to take responsibility nor listen to the citizens, which is ironic because that's who they are meant to serve and to provide that service.

People make up a country. The government, the multi-million dollar buildings, the expansive greenery that gave us the garden city namesake, a country does not make.

The system was designed for a rapid economic growth and expansion, and granted, that has worked well for the initial 3rd world years up till this flourishing state.

However, in this day and age, Singaporeans are getting increasingly well traveled and well educated and THAT is a huge problem to that same said system because it isn't designed to answer questions or solve your problems, it exists to make money, at all costs including their people's opinions.

That freedom exists here in Australia and look what it has done for the country? People aren't afraid to speak up, or tell you to get up from your seat so the pregnant lady can have it. They are free to voice their opinions and live life however they want without the societal pressure that the cars they are driving or bags they are carrying or flats they are living in aren't fancy enough. That only exists in a tiny denomination here.

People here stop to admire and get inspired by the beauty of an alleyway that has been taken by graffiti artists. Singapore they point and look and say "woah die this fella sure tio caning and jail" and then gossip about it in forums and Facebook.

That's what Singapore needs, to develop a personality from the freedom to voice their rights and unhappiness and most importantly actually be able to physically do something about it.

Clara Hwang

Legal action against Alex Au

I am deeply disappointed at the threat of legal action that the Prime Minister has taken against blogger Alex Au.

I read his four articles again and found that he had been quite fair in his comments and had asked important questions of public interest. I did not find anything defamatory in the articles. (Correct me, if I am wrong).

The defamatory statements could be contained in the comments posted by other people in the article and "approved" by Alex. Many of these comments are posted by anonymous people, who are untraceable - at least to Alex. As there could be hundreds of these comments, it would be impossible for Alex to check all of them.

Most people ignore these comments anyway. I do not see why the Prime Minister should feel offended at comments that are incredible and generally treated like the rantings of mad people. They should be ignored by him or by other people.

I have personally experienced personal attacks, insults and defamatory comments of a more serious kind in the social media. I generally ignore most of them, although on a few occasions I did ask the moderator to remove some of the very bad ones.

Some of these comments could be done deliberately by people in the "Internet brigade" with the sole intention of creating trouble for Alex Au. I have experienced the malicious work of these people in my Facebook (www.facebook.com/kinlian).

More importantly, we need to have a society that behave with integrity and fairness; and the leaders should set an example.

Tan Kin Lian

Making a claim under Elder-shield

Many policyholders pay a large premium to be covered under Eldershield. They are worried that when the time comes to make a claim, they have to incur a large cost to get an evaluation of an approved doctor and to find that the claim has been rejected. This case study explains the nature of the concern.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=730&IID=736
'

Getting replies from Government websites

I received this email from the CPF each month.  It is difficult to get the reply from the CPF website. The process is time consuming and troublesome.
It is much easier for me if they sent the reply directly to my e-mail address or use the OneInBox that was announced two years ago and still not implemented yet. It is a simple system, but is taking ages to implement. Singapore has become quite inefficient.

-----------------------------------------
Dear Employer
The electronic Record of Payment (eROP) for payment received on 02 Jan 2013 under CPF Submission Number 200700231C-PTE-01 is ready for viewing. To view:

1) Please login to CPF e-Submission website and select "View Record of Payment".
2) Select the Statement No. to view the eROP.

Yours faithfully
Electronic Submission Section
Central Provident Fund Board

Opening a SGX e-learning account

Here are the instructions to open a SGX e-learning account. This is required for people taking the SGX Online Test to buy ETF.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=729&IID=735

Review of public health care, 2013

The Ministry of Health is embarking on a major review in 2013 to ensure that

public health care remains accessible and affordable to Singaporeans.

I hope that the review should involve all sectors of our society in the spirit of 

the "National Conversation".

Our current system of paying from health care through many sources, known

as the 3M approach, plus personal savings, should also be reviewed. 

We should consider alternative approaches, such as the single payer system, that is used 

successfully in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Taiwan.

A single payer system allows better control of the health care bill and reduces 

the heavy administrative cost.

An alternative approach, used in Japan and several European countries, allows

a large part of the bill to be paid from a single insurance plan, instead of the 

fragmented sources adopted in Singapore.

I have been personally involved in the medical insurance business for a large

part of the past 20 years. I know the practical aspects of managing a national insurance 

pooling scheme and also the confusion faced by the patients of dealing with our 

current fragmented payment system . 

If we have to retain the 3M approach, there is much that can be done to 

streamline the system and remove the gaps and inefficiencies that have been created. It

requires the fundamental flaws to be addressed, instead of the "tweaking" approach that 

has been adopted in past years. 

A group of eminent health care professionals have have put in nine months of study to 

produce a paper entitled "SDP national Healthcare Plan: Caring for all citizens". These 

professionals have personal experience in the provision of health care, know the underlying 

problems and have come out with a possible solution. 

I hope that they will be engaged in the review and their proposals should be considered.

Tan Kin Lian