Financial advisers willing to sell term and ETF

Hi Mr. Tan,

I am currently recruiting advisers especially tied agents who felt that their agencies have not been providing good support to them. I am aware that a number of agencies/firms taught their agents to sell based on the highest commissions rather than needs of their clients with very few training provided. 

Under my team, advisers will not be judged based on how much revenue they can bring in but on how clients are being helped. I imposed no sales quota. I’ll hand-hold these new advisers on how to do recommendations based on needs of their clients. I am product neutral as long as recommendations are suitable for their clients. This is unlike other agency managers who may be unhappy with low cost recommendations such as term and ETFs. Moreover, training provided easily exceeds 90 hours per year. This is way above the regulatory requirement of 30 hours.

My advisers will not charge an advisory fee unless they have significant relevant experience and academy qualifications. I do not consider advisers from tied agencies to have the relevant experience unless they can show evidence of selling products based on needs. In the meantime, how these new advisers are going to earn a decent living selling suitable products is going to be an issue. One of my ideas is to get clients to come to our business center for consultation during office hours. Clients indirectly pay for the advisory fee by incurring their own travel expenses and the inconvenience of taking time off from work. Even if these advisers do not charge a fee for the consultation, the reduction in travel and marketing expenses for these advisers will be significant because the profit margin for selling low cost products is higher when expenses are lowered. 

My recruitment page can be found here: http://www.wilfredling.com/content/view/169/67/.

Thank you for posting this on your blog. Appreciate it.

Wilfred Ling

FA Associate Director

Promiseland Independent Pte Ltd

10 tips on buying insurance

Here are 10 tips on buying insurance. It is written for consumers.
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Median income grew by 4.2%

Read this story: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1096348/1/.html
Although the median income has increased, it barely covers inflation. Furthermore, the lower income workers hardly earned any increase and have to cope with higher cost of living.

Talk by Jacques Attali - Is the Global Economy still in crisis?

I recommend my blog followers to attend this public talk - which I have registered to attend. Please read the details below and register for the talk. Personally, I like the socialist approach taken by France, rather than the free market capitalist approach followed of America (that has caused the global crisis). I like to hear what Dr. Attali has to say, and will also give my views at the seminar.

If you register for this talk, please send an e-mail to kinlian@gmail.com. I want to talk to you about the issues that you are interested in or know that you are attending.

Tan Kin Lian

ASEF(www.asef.org) is the only permanent institution of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) based in Singapore.

We organise various intellectual, cultural and people-to-people exchange programmes that promote mutual understanding between the people of Asia and Europe. So far we have conducted over 500 projects, reached out to over 15,000 participants in Asia and Europe.

On the 13^th of January 2011 we are organising a ‘Public Talk’ by the French economist and writer Jacques Attali, one of the top 100 public intellectuals of the world. This event is co-organised with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). Singapore Foreign Minister Mr George Yeo will be present in this event to introduce Dr Attali.

This will be an open session where people from different walks of life living in Singapore would get an opportunity to interact with Dr Attali. The topic for discussion: “Is The Global Economy Still In Crisis?”

The venue of the event is the Ballroom, Raffles Hotel (13^th January, Thursday, 10.00 am to 12.00 noon)

Here is a a short video on this event http://asef.org/index.php?option=com_project&task=view&id=669

BEST - Business Game

Go to this website: http://www.easyapps.sg/besta/

Watch the video to learn how to play this game.

There will be 7 games every hour. So, you can join the game at any time of the day or night! You can even join a game after it has started.

If you are not sure about playing the game, you can "View" any game and watch how the other players are doing. If you join the game and do not wish to submit any input, the software is intelligent enough to simulate the input for you.

If you are the only real player in the game, you will be competing against 9 other simulated players. You should be able to perform better than them, after you learn the technique. But, at the initial stage, you may perform worse.

Wish you all the best!

Making reparations

Hi Mr. Tan,

After studying for some financial planning examination modules as well as reading up widely about financial planning, insurance and investments, I have come to realise that I have sold many products of poor value to my clients during the last almost two years I spent at an agency of a large insurance company.

Being naive and new to the industry back then, I readily accepted products such as anticipated endowment plans and regular-premium ILP life insurance as good and beneficial for my clients and myself. Like many of my colleagues, I trusted my manager and company to teach us the right thing.

It is only now that I realised that many of these products were taught to us based on half-truths, and in turn we recommended such products to our clients based on such half-truths. When I raised such issues to my colleagues and manager, they persisted in rhetoric that we were truly benefitting our clients with such products, and even that the half-truths were necessary for them to take up the beneficial plans. Later, possibly knowing that I know better, I was persuaded to leave which I was more than happy to do so as I could not continue to do things against my conscience. My colleagues are still spell-bound by their managers and perhaps the money and incentives they got from the sales of such products. I know them to be good-natured and well-meaning people, but alas I feel hurt to realise that many of them think that I'm just trying to create trouble when I tell them about the serious downsides of the products we were selling.

I feel very bad and guilty that many of my clients will be shortchanged as a result of such plans which neither insure them adequately nor prepare them for retirement. Insurance agents face a lot of rejection, and I feel that I have betrayed the trust of these people who were kind enough to give me a chance to handle their finances.

I am moving on to an ethical independent financial advisory firm where I feel I will be most able to give ethical and competent advice (low cost funds and term policies), but I still feel bad for the financial damage I have potentially caused to my clients. I feel that I should tell them the truth I have realised about the products they have taken up, but I worry about the potential repercussions I might face. While I feel that it is good for them to know as their policies are still young and still manageable, I think that many will misunderstand and think I am just trying to sell other products to them even though I can receive a good income by just remaining mum and collecting the trailing commissions.

I even feel inclined to refund them the full cost of the premiums they have paid, but I realised that while the remuneration for such products were good, I cannot possibly do this as a bulk of the premiums also go to other entities aside from the adviser, and I have to consider my own survival.

I sincerely wish to make up for the wrongs I have done. I hope you and your blog readers can give some suggestions and advice on how I can make reparations to my clients.

Many thanks.