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SINGAPORE: Singaporeans now have a new consumer watchdog that looks after their interests in financial investments.
The Financial Services Consumer Association or "FiSCA" has been started by former chief of NTUC Income, Mr Tan Kin Lian.
He said its core mission for now is to teach people about long term financial security.
Observers said scenes of irate investors who lost millions in their failed structured products after Lehman Brothers crashed last year, show many in Singapore are still not well-informed about financial matters.
So "FiSCA" plans to address this shortfall.
Tan Kin Lian, president, Financial Services Consumers Association, said: "We aim to give people long term security and we don't want to teach them to be speculators. Other people can do that role. It’s not our role.
“We want to educate people on the importance of diversification, in your investment, don't take too much risk.”
Online the association provides reviews on investment products, and in the future, a white-list of financial products for consumers.
It also wants to link lawyers up with investors who face disputes with financial institutions.
And FiSCA plans to register 10,000 members within a year. That's when it said it will have enough resources to set up a resolution and mediation centre to help consumers affected by the mis-selling of financial products.
One investor lobby group welcomes the new association.
David Gerald, president, Securities Investors Association, Singapore, said: "Active investors in the stock market alone is nearly half a million people. There are many more coming on to the market. There are more and more products coming online. More sophisticated and complicated products are coming online. The task of getting them ready for investing is a mammoth task. It cannot be done by just one association or one institution, it has to be shared."
SIAS which was formed in 1999, currently has about 70,000 members.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it encourages all new and existing groups to work together to improve consumers' investment know-how.
Investment seminars are already conducted by existing groups and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
And the Consumer Association of Singapore said consumers will stand to benefit from more education programmes.
But turnout is often poor, according to the Association of Financial Advisors, with less than half the seats filled in seminars it has conducted.
The association said one of the main challenges now is getting more consumers to come.
And this is something FiSCA will have to address when it launches its first series of talks in January 2010 held as part of the National Library Board's Economic Survivor Programme.
FiSCA Membership starts at S$36 per year. - CNA/vm
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