Experiences with Land Banking

5 people responded to my survey about their experience with land banking. The results are shown here:

	When invested	Amount invested	Outcome
1	2007	$75,000	No update from company regarding the investment.
2	2008	$	Matured but yet to receive the returns
3	2004	$21,000	Supposed to be 5 yrs investment but now they say its 5 to 8 yrs
4	2008	$36,270	Company rejected my option to surrender the plot back to them.
5	2005	$100,000	Did not deliver on promises

Hidden charges in Investment-linked policies

Read my letter published in the Straits Times.

I call on insurance companies to be transparent in their charges to commuters and not hide them from customers. If the charges are too high, they should reduce the charges and give better value to their customers.

Driver-less taxis

Here are some further comments on the driver-less taxi service to provide local transport within 3 km.

Advice from an insurance CEO

I met many senior insurance managers at an Asean Insurance Conference in Vientiane, Laos.

One participant, who is a CEO, told me that he advised his friends and family members to buy Term insurance for the insurance cover. He advised them to avoid insurance products as investments, as they get a poor return.

He wished that it was possible for his company to sell better value products, but after providing for the high commission to the agents, this was not possible. He was not able to develop a new sales channel to replace the agents.

Earn an income by selling my puzzle books

A few people are able to earn a good income by selling my puzzle books. Details of my books are found here. They sell the books by teaching people how to solve the puzzles. If you are interested to try, send an e-mail to kinlian@gmail.com. The unsold books can be returned for a full refund.

Fair Dealing Outcome for Customers

I wish to post this article as a reminder to MAS and the financial institutions that they have the responsibility to ensure fair dealing outcome for customers. These should not be just hollow words, but should be pursued with conviction.

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MAS calls on banks, finance companies to lead in fair dealing

Thu, Feb 21, 2008
The Straits Times

THE MONETARY Authority of Singapore (MAS) has called on the board and senior management of firms from the banking, insurance and capital market sectors to lead their companies to improve the level of service offered by their representatives.

MAS issued a consultation paper on Thursday, stressing the responsibility of such top-level individuals, and also asking them to review their business operations to deliver what the authority calls 'fair dealing outcomes' to retail consumers. MAS has issued five 'fair dealing outcomes'.

One such fair dealing outcome is that consumers have confidence that the financial institutions put consumers' interests first in the conduct of their business.

MAS encourages financial advisory industry assocations to actively promote fair dealing outcomes among member firms.

Interested parties can provide feedback on the guidelines, which are available on the MAS website.