Any company that provides financial advice falls under the ambit of the new Financial Advisers Act, which controls Singapore's financial services sector. Financial advice includes a host of activities like advising, reporting, writing, publicizing, recommending and selling, so the Act affects banks, stockbroking firms, life insurance companies, fund managers and companies distributing life insurance, equities, foreign exchange, futures and other investment products. Financial planning is not explicitly included in the FAA, but if a planner puts forward anything that can be construed as advice then they would be liable for a breach of the FAA, so, practically speaking, no one can realistically be a financial planner without falling under the FAA. What counts as an exempt financial adviser? Read more...
By: Patrick Lim
Hi, all,
Firstly, please allow me to tender my most abject apologies to all of my regular readers of my blog for not posting even a single entry after the last one in march 2008. You see, since my MIA some months ago, I continued to receive many queries from both consumers and forumers from sgfunds but what really prompted me to return to blogging is that in this month alone through 2 product launches at TM AsiaLife and NTUC-Income on July 1 and 18 respectively, I have had the pleasure of meeting fellow advisers from both FA/IFA companies who approached me and told me that my blog is an important source of information for them and they have always looked forward to learning from me.
And just 2 days ago, in meeting up with a prospective client, and like many others before her, was not clear with regard to my standing and role as an IFA? In addressing her queries and for the benefit of all consumers, I reproduce here an excellent article written by Mr David Choo, managing director and founder of Promiseland Independent Ptd Ltd (founded in 1986) and published in the Smartinvestor magazine some years back in March 2003 just after the FAA was passed in October 2002:
