An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
Its well known that senior public servants and political appointees rarely disclose events that will reflect badly on them. And making a decision also does not come naturally. It is generation that relied on one man to make the call for over 40 plus years. At stake for this generation is the well known overly high remuneration structure that acts to hold on to good people but it also holds back bad performers who will find it difficult to secure a position as well paid as their current role. Its now entrenched culture to sit tight and let the noise to go away or die down.
Here is the short background to BSI supposed closure by MAS announced yesterday. BSI was bought over by EFG International in February this year, another Merchant / Swiss Bank which has a presence in Singapore longer than BSI. The staff were already notified that jobs will go as there is no need to have 2 teams and 2 infrastructure to handle an increase in accounts. Its is pretty much a straight forward transfers of accounts and assets under one management. So why pretend to act tough and make statements when the closure was imminent without MAS doing anything. Ravi Menon could have spent more time ensuring that future currency notes do not misspell the names of iconic identities of Singapore. So we now know that this is a charade and the lack of candour an issue
Now for courage. When MAS inspected BSI in 2011, it found issues. And MAS claimed that they were rectified. In 2014, BSI was inspected by MAS again and there were more serious issues. In 2015 when the whole World came to know of 1MDB and large funds flowing thru left, right and centre, MAS made a "more intrusive" third inspection and lo and behold, they uncovered
* multiple breaches of anti-money-laundering regulations and a pervasive pattern of non-compliance. (from MAS)
* blatant disregard for monetary authority rules on compliance, and numerous acts (from MAS)
Its like getting call from the Fire Service notifying me that my neighbour's house has burnt down, a public service message just in case I was not aware.
So what was MAS doing all this while? And why did MAS hire a BSI staff as an Asst Director in August 2015 when it found rampant mismanagement from the very top to bottom by then. What was so special about this staff or are is MAS fansof Leo's movie To Catch a Thief.
Now this gets interesting. The bulk of BSI management staff came from Coutts Singapore. Coutts which now belongs to RBS which has been under investigation with the Swiss Authorities for sometime. In fact the shady accounts that are now the talk of the town came from Coutts presumably brought over by the same team when they moved over. The MAS Asst Director is also from the Coutts gang. There are hundreds of greats banks and with them come some great and highly experience staff. So why hire someone from entity that is already shrouded in controversy.
If MAS truly had courage, they would have referred all those who were involved in rigging the SIBOR for prosecution. Instead their respective banks sacked them only to be rehired in another bank or finance related firm. A game of musical chair if you will. UK authorities have already begun prosecution of those who fixed LIBOR and some have been convicted and gone to jail. No one has been spared including the clerks and the big boys.
So now the World knows that MAS is all fire and noise but very light touch. Is this not the ideal place to be work in when things involving foreigners are light touch. Remember the British lad, who struggled to get O level passes, who dropped his pants at the Cricket Club and also dropped the entire Simex in a hole to the tune of over a Billion dollars which then led to the bankruptcy of Barings, the Queen's Bank and one of the oldest financial institution in the World. Again poor oversight. Nick Lesson too was from Coutts.
Now the matter of Jardine Fleming and its closure. When minority shareholders of Singapore Land protested over sizeable acquisition of assets by the management, JD gave erroneous advice and valuation. It made the news. Nothing happened. When Jardine Fleming did the same thing to a Government Linked company Keppel, it was closed down real quick. I have not doubt that the management of Keppel had more clout.
Now lets go on to the episode involving Bank of Credit and Commerce in the early 90s. It had applied for a banking licences in Singapore some years earlier. MAS sat on it knowing that it had issues internationally and the Americans were making noise. When the BCCI triggered the bank run in HK and collapsed in in 1991, MAS did exactly what they did with the BSI closure and claimed that they refused to grant BCCI a licence supposedly having done their homework. What they did not say was that they did not have the courage to reject the application but sat on it until the HK affair.
Compliance and money laundering laws including KYC requirements are now pretty much templated internationally. It is nothing new. Moving $20m million at one go from account with no related history is a red flag to anyone let alone a bull. Why is this so hard to control?
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.
Its well known that senior public servants and political appointees rarely disclose events that will reflect badly on them. And making a decision also does not come naturally. It is generation that relied on one man to make the call for over 40 plus years. At stake for this generation is the well known overly high remuneration structure that acts to hold on to good people but it also holds back bad performers who will find it difficult to secure a position as well paid as their current role. Its now entrenched culture to sit tight and let the noise to go away or die down.
Here is the short background to BSI supposed closure by MAS announced yesterday. BSI was bought over by EFG International in February this year, another Merchant / Swiss Bank which has a presence in Singapore longer than BSI. The staff were already notified that jobs will go as there is no need to have 2 teams and 2 infrastructure to handle an increase in accounts. Its is pretty much a straight forward transfers of accounts and assets under one management. So why pretend to act tough and make statements when the closure was imminent without MAS doing anything. Ravi Menon could have spent more time ensuring that future currency notes do not misspell the names of iconic identities of Singapore. So we now know that this is a charade and the lack of candour an issue
Now for courage. When MAS inspected BSI in 2011, it found issues. And MAS claimed that they were rectified. In 2014, BSI was inspected by MAS again and there were more serious issues. In 2015 when the whole World came to know of 1MDB and large funds flowing thru left, right and centre, MAS made a "more intrusive" third inspection and lo and behold, they uncovered
* multiple breaches of anti-money-laundering regulations and a pervasive pattern of non-compliance. (from MAS)
* blatant disregard for monetary authority rules on compliance, and numerous acts (from MAS)
Its like getting call from the Fire Service notifying me that my neighbour's house has burnt down, a public service message just in case I was not aware.
So what was MAS doing all this while? And why did MAS hire a BSI staff as an Asst Director in August 2015 when it found rampant mismanagement from the very top to bottom by then. What was so special about this staff or are is MAS fansof Leo's movie To Catch a Thief.
Now this gets interesting. The bulk of BSI management staff came from Coutts Singapore. Coutts which now belongs to RBS which has been under investigation with the Swiss Authorities for sometime. In fact the shady accounts that are now the talk of the town came from Coutts presumably brought over by the same team when they moved over. The MAS Asst Director is also from the Coutts gang. There are hundreds of greats banks and with them come some great and highly experience staff. So why hire someone from entity that is already shrouded in controversy.
If MAS truly had courage, they would have referred all those who were involved in rigging the SIBOR for prosecution. Instead their respective banks sacked them only to be rehired in another bank or finance related firm. A game of musical chair if you will. UK authorities have already begun prosecution of those who fixed LIBOR and some have been convicted and gone to jail. No one has been spared including the clerks and the big boys.
So now the World knows that MAS is all fire and noise but very light touch. Is this not the ideal place to be work in when things involving foreigners are light touch. Remember the British lad, who struggled to get O level passes, who dropped his pants at the Cricket Club and also dropped the entire Simex in a hole to the tune of over a Billion dollars which then led to the bankruptcy of Barings, the Queen's Bank and one of the oldest financial institution in the World. Again poor oversight. Nick Lesson too was from Coutts.
Now the matter of Jardine Fleming and its closure. When minority shareholders of Singapore Land protested over sizeable acquisition of assets by the management, JD gave erroneous advice and valuation. It made the news. Nothing happened. When Jardine Fleming did the same thing to a Government Linked company Keppel, it was closed down real quick. I have not doubt that the management of Keppel had more clout.
Now lets go on to the episode involving Bank of Credit and Commerce in the early 90s. It had applied for a banking licences in Singapore some years earlier. MAS sat on it knowing that it had issues internationally and the Americans were making noise. When the BCCI triggered the bank run in HK and collapsed in in 1991, MAS did exactly what they did with the BSI closure and claimed that they refused to grant BCCI a licence supposedly having done their homework. What they did not say was that they did not have the courage to reject the application but sat on it until the HK affair.
Compliance and money laundering laws including KYC requirements are now pretty much templated internationally. It is nothing new. Moving $20m million at one go from account with no related history is a red flag to anyone let alone a bull. Why is this so hard to control?
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.