Promises made at the NTUC Income AGM in 2008

Extract from speech by chairman of NTUC Income at the AGM

1. Some policyholders have raised specific concerns on the special bonus in blogs.  Allow me to address them.
   
   
   • While special bonuses are not guaranteed, they are designed to ensure that the reduction in annual bonus is compensated.  As I have indicated earlier, the new bonus structure is aimed at improving, the total payout to policyholders.
     
     
   • Should the special bonus in future reduce due to adverse financial conditions, we are committed to restoring it when conditions improve.
     
     
   • I have stated that this Board will look after the policyholders’ interests. Towards this end, the Board will ensure that the bonus allocated to policyholders result in payouts is fair and consistent with the experience of the Life Fund. 

NTUC Income's Bonus Cut

Dear Mr. Tan,

At last year's general meeting, the chairman of Income made certain promises to policyholders concerning the bonus cut. He said that bonuses will be declared based on the actual experience of the fund. Do you intend to ask the chairman about the steps that have been taken to declare fair rates of bonuses? It seems that Income knows how to cut bonuses and to spend money to give more incentives to insurance agents? What about giving a fair return to policyholders?

REPLY

I am in Canada now on a 3 week vacation. I will return to Singapore just before the annual general meeting. I have asked to attend the meeting which will be held on Friday 29 May.

I like to ask policyholders who are unhappy with the bonus cut to attend the annual general meeting and post the questions to the board. I have labelled my blog postings on the bonus cut separately. Click on the label "NTUC Income Bonus Cut".

The statement by the chairman at last year's AGM can be found here. NTUC Income's FAQ on bonus cut is found here.

Can policyholders help to identify the questions to ask the chairman at the AGM to be held on 29 May?

 

Scenes from Vancouver, Canada

Chinatown in Vancouver - second largest Chinatown in North America (after San Francisco).

Tulips in bloom in Vancouver. 

Skyline of downtown in Vancouver.

SCMP:Sanctions loom in Lehman investigation

The Monetary Authority is one step closer to sanctioning those guilty of misconduct in 48 cases that involved the sale of Lehman Brothers-linked investment products.

It had concluded its investigation into the 48 complaints and was considering disciplinary action, the authority said yesterday.

But it would decide on what action to take only after it had heard from those against whom the complaints were lodged.

"A number of cases are at a very advanced stage of the enforcement process. Before making a final determination in these cases, we have to go through due process to ensure fairness, including giving the subjects of investigation an opportunity to be heard," it said.

If found guilty, an executive officer of a financial institution could be withdrawn or suspended from office, and a financial practitioner's registration could be removed or suspended under the Banking Ordinance, an authority spokesman said.

An institution could have its registration revoked or suspended by the Securities and Futures Commission, be subject to a reprimand, a fine or a prohibition order. Employees of the firm who were involved could also be similarly sanctioned.

Some 48,000 Hongkongers lost most of the HK$20 billion they invested in credit-linked derivatives, such as minibonds, issued or guaranteed by Lehman Brothers when the US investment bank collapsed in September. Many of them have accused financial institutions that sold them the products of misconduct. By Thursday, the authority had received a total of 20,913 such complaints.

Hours before the announcement the authority's chief executive, Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, told a Legislative Council hearing that mis-selling was inevitable because of the variable quality of bank employees.

Responding to criticism by financial services legislator Chim Pui-chung that the authority had not fulfilled its regulatory duties, Mr Yam said: "It is like crime ... always exists in the society. Are law enforcement departments responsible for that?"

The authority recently hired 40 more employees to handle complaints of mis-selling, he said, and would continue its recruitment to raise the current number of 243 officers to 300.

Peter Chan Kwong-yue, chairman of the Alliance of Lehman Brothers Victims in Hong Kong, welcomed the possible sanctions in the 48 cases.

Mr Chan also said the alliance was arranging a meeting with the Bank of China (Hong Kong) to discuss compensation.

In yet another protest, dozens of investors stormed the Citibank headquarters in Central in the afternoon. They were removed by police in the evening.