No More Property “Specialists”; Just Plenty of “Financial Consultants”
I read with interest the Straits Times article – No more property ‘specialists’ from Aug 1 – which describes how regulators are clamming down on misleading titles that property agents are giving themselves such as “specialist” and “experts”. This follows Ministry of Health’s investigation of Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners giving themselves similarly dubious “specialist” titles.
I welcome such regulations as they allow for greater transparency. Such measures are sorely required and overdue in the local financial services industry.
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Ex-MP Ong Kian Min Right About Misleading “Financial Consultant” Titles 10 Years Ago
It’s perhaps cliché to claim to be passionate about one’s job, but I think I prove it by spending my Saturday morning reading and analysing the Parliamentary record of then-Chairman of MAS Lee Hsien Loong presenting the bill for the Financial Advisers Act in 2001.
Reading through the hansard, I realised then-MP Ong Kian Min had already identified potential problems which are indeed prevalent in the financial industry now. I am quite surprised at how similar his points were to the reflections I have had over the course of my work, even though it was spoken some ten years ago!
SM Goh Chok Tong’s Take on Insurance
A few excerpts from SM Goh Chok Tong speech at NTUC Income’s 40th anniversary:
Affordability of Term vs Whole Life
“What can we do to keep insurance protection affordable? I urge the insurance industry to make a more concerted effort to address this. Part of the problem lies in the conventional practice of insurers in bundling the savings and protection elements into what is known as Whole Life Plans. Since the savings element in such Whole Life Plans can be very significant, the insurance premiums could be 3-5 times that of pure protection Term Assurance plans, for the same level of protection. I faced the same problem when I first started work. I could not afford a Whole Life Plan but had the good sense to choose a Term Assurance policy.”