Thursday, January 13, 2011

SME Services

This portal allows a SME to handle its accounting, payroll and corporate documents.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=367

Investing for the Long Term

This article shows that when you start and when you finish is also important:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110102-metrics-graphic.html

There is a statement: After 60 or 70 years, returns are relatively stable, but this time frame is longer than the relevant horizon for many retirement plans. Actually, this is the real time horizon for a person who starts saving at age 25 and dies at age 85 (i.e. a period of 60 years). There is no need for the investor to cash out of the market at retirement, as the investor needs only to withdraw a monthly sum to meet living expenses.



ACRA - Secretarial

Does ACRA require a qualified person to be the company secretary? Can any of the directors or staff, without any secretarial qualification, take the duty of secretary for fulfilling ACRA requirements?

Book- Get Value from your Life Insurance

Here is the new cover for my book on Life Insurance. I am using cartoon for the cover and the same characters to illustrate the key messages
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=359

Financial Planning statement for a 25 year old

This financial planning statement has been prepared for a 25 year old. It is suitable for a graduate who has just started work. You can use this sample statement to learn how to interpret the figures and the impact of different investment yields and inflation on your future income. You can go to this website to prepare a similar statement based on your personal circumstances. www.easysearch.sg/life21

Buying car insurance online

Dear Mr Tan
My car insurance was due for renewal and my current underwriter quoted $1267. I went to NTUC Insurance and they quoted $1461 (seems they are not the cheapest as I thought). By chance, I saw a banner ad for AVIVA on Yahoo!SG and got an online quick quote for $1047, which is a saving not to be sneezed at. A little googling throws up both good and bad points, but I decided to sign up with them. Right or wrong decision, only time will tell.

My comment
It is easy to get an online quote from Aviva (www.aviva) or Direct Asia (www.directasia.com) for your car insurance. They can usually give you significant savings. If not, you only wasted a few minutes, but you got a good benchmark to compare against your current insurer.




Cool the property market

Further measures have been announced.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1104498/1/.html

Mobile roaming fees

The fees for voice and text will be lowered.  But no news on data roaming.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/southeastasia/view/1104549/1/.html

Unregulated investment products

My book, Practical Guide on Financial Planning has a chapter on the unregulated investment products, such as wine investments, land banking and ponzi schemes. These investments are unregulated by the authority. The seller promises high yields, which are not legally binding. Many people have fallen prey to these scams and lost a lot of money in the past one or two years, after my book was published. Many people are still falling prey to these scams. They are also buying life insurance policies that give them a poor yield, even though these cases are explained in my book.

I advise you to buy the book and read it over two times, to get an understanding of what to look out for, and what to avoid. It can save you many thousand dollars and a lot of heartache.

You can enjoy a 40% discount on this book here.

Tan Kin Lian

Quality of Life

Singapore has a high per capita income but that is not reflected in a high quality of life for the people.
www.tankinlian.com/latest.aspx
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=366

Supremehealth and Total Shield

Dear Mr Tan,
I met an agent from Great eastern who introduced their health insurance plan (Supremehealth). It seemed to have many advantages compared to the other plans.

Do you ecommend to go for private hospital compared to the government hospital? I have not stayed in the hospital before, and do not know their treatment, facilities, doctors and others.


Is there a need to buy Total shield on top of Supremehealth? What about the riders to include my wife and children?


REPLY
Go to this webpage
http://www.tankinlian.com/Information.aspx

Type in "Medishield:" and click on Search.
Read the FAQs

Register of Electors

Ready for inspection:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_623774.html

Talk by Jacques Attali

“We are not yet out of crisis” said Dr Jacques Attali, French professor, writer, economist and public intellectual 

The fundamental cause of the global economic crisis is the absence of a ‘global rule of law’ to control the global financial market, according to Dr Jacques Attali, President of PlaNet Finance, an international non-profit organisation that promotes microfinance in some 80 countries.  
“The global crisis is the result of global demand for public and private debt,” he said, adding that “The excess of debt has created a lack of trust.” 

In the advanced Western economies, the debt crisis has revolved primarily around the inability of the private banking sector to respond adequately to the excessive demand for loans. Insolvent banks that have had their liabilities absorbed by the public sector have also caused in turn rising public debts. Elaborating his thoughts on this subject, Dr Attali said that microfinance could be one of the solutions to the global crisis, as it creates employment opportunities while reducing poverty without incurring huge debts.  

An honorary Member of the Council of State of France, Dr Attali was the keynote speaker at the public talk “Is the Global Economy Still in Crisis?” The talk was held on Thursday 13 January at the Ballroom, Raffles Hotel. Referring to the US economy, which is the world’s largest economy, Dr Attali observed that “the economic situation in the US is worse than ever before, especially as the US debt is still 350% of the GDP, and with 650,000 Americans still homeless.” 

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, who was present during the event to introduce Dr Attali, noted that “Taking a long term view towards a common destiny is the mission of the new Eurasia.”

Directors of M V Land

I am looking for the names of all the directors of M V Land (developer of Midview City) and of their parent company. If anyone has the information, please send the list to kinlian@gmail.com.

Editorial in SGEP

The editorial in SGEP has been updated to summarisz the content in the portal. Visit: www.easyapps.sg/sgep

Land banking in the news in Malaysia

Dear Mr Tan,
This is to bring to your attention of this article in the Sun newspaper in Malaysia
http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=56280