$9000 for NSman, big fucking deal

From CNA

MINDEF unveils details of NS Recognition Award
By S Ramesh | Posted: 31 August 2010 1214 hrs

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has given details of the National Service Recognition Award (NSRA) announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the National Day Rally.

The award is to recognise Singapore citizens who have served national service.

The NSRA is a monetary award of between S$9,000 and S$10,500 for each Singaporean NSman, with commanders getting more.

It will benefit full time and operationally-ready NSmen in service from August 29, the day it was announced by Prime Minister Lee, and will not be retroactive.

The money will be disbursed equally at three significant milestones during the serviceman's full-time training and his Operationally-Ready National Service (ORNS).

Eligible NSmen will receive S$3,000 at each of the milestones, and commanders will get S$500 more each time.

Commanders are those holding third sergeant rank and above in the Singapore Armed Forces, or sergeant and above in the HomeTeam.

Minister of State for Defence, Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee, said: "They do more... - usually for each in-camp training they come in one or two days earlier if not more to do the planning and they probably stay one or two days later - so they get more.

"We do not want to monetise the contributions of Nsmen, it is the value we place on it. And it is only for Singapore citizens - the signal that the Prime Minister and government (are sending) that Singaporeans come first and Singaporeans are always important.

"This recognition award is to recognise the contributions of Singapore citizens doing national service full-time and the in-camp training cycle. I think S$9,000 is very significant, but the significance goes beyond the S$9,000.

"It is the value the government and the Prime Minister place on the contributions of Singapore citizens. Many Singaporeans think it is the duty to do national service and this S$9,000 comes as a pleasant surprise and great bonus.

"The first S$3,000 is very useful for an NSman finishing NS and enroute to education. They can pay for their tuition fees for at least one year for most courses in NUS, NTU, SMU. The second and third tranche can go into the CPF to pay for housing and other requirements specified by the CPF."

The first milestone is when the serviceman completes his full-time national service. The money will be paid out at the 20th month of service. It will be deposited into the Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) to help with further studies.

The second tranche will be paid after the completion of three high-key in-camp training, or five in-camp training stints, whichever is earlier. And the last payment will be when the full Operationally-Ready National Service training cycle is completed.

The second and third milestone awards will be paid in the servicemen's CPF accounts and distributed into the Ordinary, Special and Medisave accounts according to the prevailing CPF contribution rates. The servicemen can use the amount for their housing, healthcare and retirement needs.

As for those who have already completed their entire national service cycle, Prof Koo said: "Government policy has never been retroactive. The first significant milestone is on the 29th of August when the Prime Minister made the statement.

"Many generations who have served NS, like many of us... recognise that we have already benefited from previous policies and this policy is for NSmen going forward."

The disbursement of the National Service Recognition Award will start from February next year.

- CNA/wk/al

To Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee, if you think your $9000 is such a fucking big deal, why not I pay the govt $9000, fuck, I'll double your money and make it $18000, and you release me from the rest of my reservist liability? I'm already at the 3rd milestone already, so just fucking let me live my life. How about it eh??

Happy Birthday Singapore

Happy birthday to my country.

The country where I was born, bred and will probably die in.

I don't love you as much as I used to, but I know it isn't really your fault.

You are just a country, a land mass, where I had lived all my life.

It isn't your fault that it is now being run by dogs and going down the hill.

It isn't your fault that you are now being trampled over by masses of barbarians with uncouth manners not to mention intelligence.

I bear arms for you once, I would have given my life to defend you and its people once, but nowadays, it just doesn't seemed worthwhile anymore.

I would never do you harm, but I don't know if you will do the same for me.

As much as I loved it here once, I will leave you now at the first opportunity that comes knocking.

Enjoy your 'birthday'

The state of our financial industry

An interesting clash is brewing between insurer AXA vs Finexis. A well written article is written here. As the writer mentioned, the outcome was pretty obvious to those in the industry. Its actually pretty mind boggling as to how AXA came up with such a scheme in the first place. Anyone else could see the potential pitfalls from miles away.

The financial industry, or to be more specific, the wealth management are, to be honest, is a very 'grey' industry. Majority if not all of the sales force, including myself, is really in it for the money. I dare say I never ever mis-sold or rather misrepresented a product in all this years, but I dare not say that every single product I have sold was based on customer's needs. Its a running joke in the industry that the term 'needs based selling' is actually based on the adviser's and/or the bank/insurance company's needs first, not the customer's.

In a bank, whenever the bosses presses for sales, for 'flavor of the month', as a sales staff, you simply have to deliver. I remember vividly, one of my early cases in the bank, I recommended the customer a capital protected single premium product that I believe was best for the customer which the customer bought. At the end of the day, I had the entire set of sales documents thrown in my face, because I wasn't answering to the 'corporate call' of selling the bank's structured deposit. The manager basically stressed that he only wants sales for the structured deposit and nothing else and we have to deliver it 'one way or another'. Re-toolings, telecalls till late into the night, roadshows, etc.. all without extra OT pay, just stressing you until u gave up and start selling what they want before you are let off. That was an eye opening.

After leaving the bank, I went into the insurance industry, thinking that I am in control of what I wanna recommend to customers. My thinking wasn't exactly wrong, but you soon realise that without a basic pay, but with financial commitments to handle, you tend to recommend customers products that gave you the highest revenue. A very simple test to see if your agent is doing the same, simply by looking at the tenor of the plan they are offering you. More often than not, irregardless of whether you are 20 or 30 or 40, its always a life plan or at least a 25 year plan as it pays them full commission. So although there isn't someone telling or pressing you what to sell, consciously or subconsciously, you always end up selling the product that gives you the highest revenue, and thereby achieving what the company is pushing for that particular month anyway.

I would applaud if there ever comes a day financial planning can be done on a fee based basis. However, I probably wouldn't see it in my lifetime. The idea is great, but getting people to pay for advice, especially Singaporeans, are almost guaranteed to fail. Regardless of whether in a bank or insurance company, I never fail to meet someone who would try to bargain for better rates or free gifts etc. How can you expect this same group of people to pay for advice?

Honestly, its getting tougher and tougher for me each day to motivate myself for work these days.

Agents vs Bankers

Just a little snippet of update, the tattooedbanker is once again moving back to banking. With the job market in an upswing, I really couldn't resist the opportunity to have a 40% pay increase and a move to one of the big names. So... here I am again...

I've been going through some training etc over the last month or so with my new employer, it was refreshing in certain ways, especially in terms of product offering, yet reeks of the bureaucratic bullshit that I hated of big organisations where every departments attitude was to cover their own ass and adopting a 'not my area' mindset. Its truly sickening...

I was in banking for about 3 years before I my last switch to an insurance company. Shocker number one, even though you are doing the same job, people tends to perceive insurance as more of a 'dirty' job while they look at banks with more prestige. You can actually hear the disdain in their voices when you mentioned that you are from an insurance company. Even customers whom you know that have high net worth will not place much funds with you as you are from an insurance company which they perceive as 'less stable' than a bank. The same customers that used to place hundreds of thousands worth of investments at a time suddenly reduced their figures to tens of thousands. Luckily they still gave me some 'face' though... I see the newbies to the industry really trying and struggling hard and I really pity them. Quite a few made it though, and once their confidence grows, they actually did very well. However, I do also observe that although they improve greatly in terms of rapport building, gaining customer's trust etc, they do not really gain much in terms of market knowledge or even current affairs. It may be somewhat of a generalization, but that is quite true from what I had seen so far, probably because their core focus are on long term insurance plans as it gives them maximum revenue, and their one and only retort to customer's objection on market conditions is that you don't have to worry about it as market will always sort itself out in the long run. Not wrong at all, but if I am a customer, I do enjoy or expect a little bit more depth from my advisor.

Banks on the other hand, have what I would describe as 'perceived legitimacy'. Everything that a bank does is being perceived as more 'aboveboard' and customers really trust them a lot, which may or may not be justified, I don't really wanna discuss that. Its up to the individual. The point is, newbies in banking have an added advantage of the bank's 'backing' and do not need to try so hard to gain the customer's trust, which, once again, can be good or bad, depending on which side of the fence you are on. However, banks do seemed to focus, or expect more of their staff in terms of general knowledge, especially if you are above the mass market segment. Even the tellers and non-sales staff can give a somewhat reasonable explanation on why the deposits rate are so low, currency risks or general market direction. I think this is something that  the bank does really well in educating their staff through email updates and almost daily morning meetings. If you really wanna be able to take on the banks, this is something that I would like very much to see in insurance agencies instead of only focusing on the daily sales numbers only.

Personally, I think my short stint did me a lot of good. It opened my eyes to what is happening on the other side.

Not falling for hype

This is a little belated but I simply had not had the time to sit down in front of the computer at home. This is something that I had written about some time back in regards to UOB offer to buy back certain structured products. At that time, I already made it clear that I see it as nothing more than a publicity stunt by UOB and that investors should just sit tight and hold on to their investment. Looks like I was right. I wondered if UOB actually redeemed the funds as they said they would or did they actually sat on it for a while and made a tidy little profit in the process?


For those interested in my previous article 

Reward for holding on

Investors in structured Prudential Yield product likely to make tidy profit
by Julie Quek 05:55 AM Jun 04, 2010

SINGAPORE - It was a structured product that was on the brink of collapse last year.

But investors who had held on to the Prudential Yield 15 and Yield 20 funds managed by Prudential Asset Management (Pams) look set to walk away with a tidy profit when the fund matures next Thursday.

In October last year, United Overseas Bank (UOB) made a buyback offer to about 4,000 customers who purchased the funds through the bank. UOB offered to redeem their units at par value or the initial price they paid for the investment, less all yearly payouts such as the interest coupon to date - or at 88 cents for Yield 15 and 82 US cents ($1.15) for Yield 20.

Other distributors of this structured product were HSBC, Maybank, Prudential Assurance Company Singapore and Hong Leong Finance.

At its lowest point, the Yield 15 and Yield 20 had dived to 37.5 cents and 39.8 US cents, respectively, at the end of March last year.

But improved credit conditions this year have caused the funds to recover and the price of each unit has rebounded to $1.074 for Yield 15 and US$1.104 for Yield 20 as of May 27.

Investors who held on to the fund for five years until maturity would also have earned 15-per-cent returns in coupon payments for the Yield 15 notes. This works out to about 3 per cent coupon interest a year. Meanwhile, holders of the Yield 20 fund would have collected 22.5 per cent over the 5-year investment period of the fund.

For investors, the potential capital gains coupled with the coupon payments mean that they would walk away from the fund in a better-off position at maturity than if they had redeemed those notes last year.

A retired investor who declined to be named told MediaCorp that she regretted her decision to accept UOB's buyback offer last year as this meant she lost out on the 15-per-cent returns from the coupon payments.

However, former NTUC Income chief executive Tan Kin Lian told MediaCorp that he advised these investors not to regret their earlier decision, because no one would have known whether these funds would do well or fail at maturity this year.

The fund was in trouble last year and early this year, when it suffered a total of 17 defaults out of its 100 reference entities in its portfolio.

Had the fund been hit by six more defaults, the funds' capital would be adversely affected.

Customers are expected to receive their maturity proceeds by end-June.

Changes to Criminal Procedure Code (CPC)

Some changes to the law about interrogation (clause 258) is making the waves online. Its kinda scary and to put it across in layman's term, basically it allows the police to use statements that they cheat or conned out of you, or statements that you made when you are drunk to convict you.

E.g. Someone who is caught drink driving is brought back to the police station. 1km away, there might have been a hit and run. Police questioned if the driver, who is his intoxicated state is understandably not in the best condition to answer but is forced relentlessly to answer all questions or sign a confession before he is allowed to rest. The police might also further assure him that it is not a confession he is signing but just a procedure that he needs to do before he is allowed to rest. Being so worn out and confused, the driver may just have answered wildly or signed any documents placed in front of them just to get some rest. However, the next morning, when he is sober, he is shocked to find out that what he had signed is actually a false confession as he did not commit the crime and tries to get it revoked. Unfortunately, he is unable to do so because of the law and ends up going to jail for a crime he did not commit. Is it fair?

You can say all kinds of bullshit about the integrity of our police force or government etc but I stand by Murphy's law that "whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Fuckups had, have and will continue to occur. No human being or system can be perfect. Can the police or govt guarantee a 100% no false conviction rate? By giving too much power to the agencies, what can the man on the street do to correct a wrong? Remember the case of Dickson Tan, who was caned more times than he was supposed to be? Or Tan Lai Kiat, who was released prematurely in 1999 but warrant of arrest issued again in 2003 because the courts realised that they make a mistake? If even the courts and prison can make a mistake when handling the CONVICTED, I can't see why we should put blind trust in police where the person might be actually innocent.

Rants

I happen to come across this article by Lucky Tan comparing the life of Singaporeans from 4 years ago till now. Interesting read here



I have only one major grouse in all honestly, which I look at it as the root of all the problems, is the fact that Singapore is getting overcrowded. With the fucking wrong kind of people. The govt have basically been doling out PRs and citizenships to many people whom, to put it kindly, are hardly people that qualify as 'talent'. Lets be honest here, by just bringing in just any tom, dick and harry with fucking third world mentality and habits, do you expect to become a first world country even if you have first class infrastructure?

Personal experience, I saw this chinese boy about maybe 5 years old peeing at the void deck of my house. I shouted at him and he still had the cheek to make monkey faces at me before running to his parents, who was sitting a stone throw away at the tables, eating sunflower seeds while spitting the shells on the floor. I was then confronted by BOTH his parents, shouting at me not to scare their kid and there is nothing wrong with the kid pissing there as it was according to them, 'not outside your house'. I was fucking pissed off and wasn't going to let this go so after getting nowhere with them, I decided to call the police. Long story short, the police arrive, did nothing much, no fines or anything issued, just a verbal warning. Now whenever I see this family again, which is pretty regularly since we live in the same block, the mother would make snide remarks against us 'stupid petty Singaporeans' while the father would just glare at me with his fucked up face. Its taking all I can to make me fucking wanna punch their faces in. These are the same people that crowd with you everyday on the train, squeezing in before other comes out, jumping queues, buying up your houses and fucking polluting the land I was born in, the land that I was sworn to protect.

Yeah, I am probably generalizing, but I really fucking hate these people. I can't stand their attitudes, their cultures, their mentality. Fuck the govt about being tolerant and accepting them bullshit. If I am a visitor, I would take care to gravitate myself in accordance to the host's habits and behaviors etc. In no circumstances would I expect them to change themselves to accommodate me.

Yet I don't really blame them, its not exactly their fault that their mindset and culture is such, its normal in their own country to be such. Its very much a "me first' mentality I suppose, that is probably needed to survive in their own country, given the huge population that they have. If I were them, I would have probably done the same thing to go to another country that is willing to have me despite me having no talent and pay me a salary few times more than what I am earning here and allow me to bring my whole family along to live in their govt subsidized housing and do not have to play a part in protecting the country. They even use their people's tax money to throw parties for me, teach me a new language, and maybe even provide scholarship for my kids. Without bonds of course.

If only I can find a country that stupid that is willing to take me in on those terms. I'll pack my bags and be gone on the first plane out.