The current financial crisis has been dubbed ‘unprecedented’ by many. People and organizations from all walks of life ranging from individual to institutional investors, town councils to Sovereign Wealth Funds, employee to business owners, have been impacted to a different extent. Great challenges have arisen in terms of Wealth Preservation and Distribution.
Since the electric tariff increased by 21.5% for October 08 to Dec 08, there has been increased attention on the price of electricity, especially during the current economic downturn. Following the drop in oil price, the tariff will decrease by 24.7% for the Jan 09 to March 09 period. There was an advertisement [...]
Happen to come across a CPF advert on Today: First Step to a bigger nest egg. The advert states that ”Transferring his savings from his Ordinary Account to his Special Account allows savvy investor Jason Kuek to earn higher interest on his CPF savings“.
The advert describled the uncertainity in the job [...]
Amendment: My apologies. SMRA floor rate of 4% is applied for 2 years from 01 Jan 08 to 31 Dec 2009 instead of 2010. Thanks B yee for highlighting
There has been frequent advertisement by the CPF Board on transferring CPF OA to SA recently. One of the ‘advantages’ of doing so is [...]
CPF Board has announced that the CPF Ordinary Account (OA) interest rate for Jan 09 to Mar 09 will be 2.5%. The interest rate for Special, Medisave and Retirement Accounts (SMRA) will be announced in December. My calculation shows that the SMRA interest rate should be at the minimum 4% as the [...]
PM Lee has finally broken his silence over theLehman-linked structured note debacle, assuring the investors that the issue will be handled “fairly and properly”. Separately, the MAS has said there there is an imminent review of the structured-products industry which will address issues such as better descriptions and labelling of products, “as well as [...]
Currently, only Independent Financial Advisers (IFA) are individual licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Advisers or representatives with banks, insurers and other exempt financial institutions are not. Under the Securities and Futures (Amendment) Bill 2008 and Financial Advisers (Amendment) Bill 2008, a new Representative Notification Framework will be introduced. Under [...]
I have received the 1st piece of retrenchment news of someone I know outside of the financial sector today. There was news of retrenchment in the finance and banking sector over the last 2 months. Headcount and traveling freeze was quite common in other sectors. But for retrenchment outside banking sector, this is the 1st [...]
My client ask me about a mid term savings plan that gives a impressive return (considering the current low interest bear market). She was introduced to the plan by a bank Relationship Manager (RM) when she wanted a fixed deposit. This is how the RM illustrated the plans to her:
Interest in saving account [...]
When deciding what brand of buying cookies to buy, do you find yourself going for the one with nicer and more expensive-looking packaging if you have no preferred brand? This is normal. The nice picture, the nice texture of the packaging and the exotic name gives us a impression of a delicious cookie. [...]