No personal investment in credit linked securities

I do not have any personal investments in the credit linked securities, such as the mini-bonds, high notes, pinnacle notes and jubilee notes.

I have warned investors for the past year that these products have risks that are not easily measurable, and that the higher yield does not justify the uncertain risk.

My wife was sold the pinnacle notes. Like many other investors, she was told that it offer a higher interest rate and the risk was small. I told her to go back to the finance company and get her money back. She was able to get the full refund.

Previously, my wife and daughter invested in capital guaranteed or capital protected products. They waited patiently for the product to mature after 5 years and received a miserable total return of only 2%. These products were structured to make profit for the financial institutions and were unfair to retail investors.

I am very sad that the financial institutions were allowed to offer these "unfair" structured products to retail investors during the past ten years. They make big profits for the financial institutions but leave the retail investors with a miserable return, or as in the current case, with the loss of most of their hard earned savings.

Nobody looked after the interest of the retail investors - not the regulator nor the consumer association.