How not to open an accounts with AmBank?

Date - Aug 2, 2012 (Thursday)
Time - about 130pm
Place - Johor Bahru, Jalan Wong Ah Fook Branch
Attended by Shirley (personally) and Mr Tan Hiang Tak (Michael) (by phone) - District Manager, Southern District 4

My intention - to open a savings account to be used to service a housing loan

What did I bring to the bank? I brought myself, Malaysian identity card (I/C), Malaysian passport and money.

After Shirley reviewed my docs, she asked me why I need to open an account in Johor Bahru (JB) when the address on the I/C shows that I am from Kuala Lumpur (KL).

I told her I am working and staying in Singapore and have just entered into an option to buy a property in JB. She then asked me for work permit or Permanent Resident card or any document to prove that my place of residence is in Singapore.

I asked her why the need to show that I am residing in Singapore. She told me that it would not be appropriate for someone with a KL address to open an account in JB. So I ask why not?

I offered some possible resolutions to our impasse. I offered her my lawyer's details for her to confirm my intention. She said no. I asked Shirley whether she could talk to AmBank loan officer who is currently reviewing my loan request. She said no again.

My mind is trying to find a single possible valid reason for someone staying in Jurong being refused to open a bank account in Tampines.

Is it because the Malaysian banks' computer systems are not fully linked? Are they worried that a "naughty" customer would be able to open accounts all over Malaysia and they could not cross check each other branch's database? (By the way, I wish to reiterate that I am trying to open a savings account and not a current account. It is very difficult to cheat someone with a savings account.)

She added that I could come AGAIN on another day with perhaps, my utility bill (for example) showing my name against the address.

I asked to see the Branch Manager. I was told he is not around. I asked to speak to him over the phone. I was duly connected to a Michael Tan. I appealed to him for a waiver. He said he is unable to yield to my request and offered to ask Shirley to send an email to their Head Office for permission. I was asked to wait for the request to go through.

I waited for ONE hour.

At the end of that one hour, Shirley informed me that Head Office has turned down my request.

What am I seeking in this open letter?
a) Please explain the need for proof of residence or some other docs to support why one need to open an account in a certain location.

b) What is your standard response time for Head Office to reply to an email request from a branch?

====================================================
I am really curious to learn the reason for this requirement. The requirement for proof of residence is so important to the Bank that they could reject your request to open an account. This open letter could also many other prospective customers to understand your policy.

I actually went straight to my lawyer and duly informed him to inform future Malaysians staying in Singapore to bring their respective proof of residence.
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Mr Koh Yong Guan, may I have your view please?

the innovation after many incidents

Dear Mr Koh,

Good morning to you. As my basic intention is for reliable, safe and affordable public transport system, thus I presented the following for your review and action.

I cite from BT today. "SMRT chairman Koh Yong Guan told shareholders at the group's annual general meeting yesterday: "We do not see running an efficient and reliable MRT system and running SMRT profitably as a public company as contradictory.
"All leading public transport operators in the world strive for the same objectives, even though our market structures and revenue models may differ."

Edgar - May I say that the fact that our market structures and revenue models may differ from others could have contributed to the tension between being a public transport operator and meeting shareholders' aspiration?

I cite again. "We do not see the need to change our dividend policy for now," said Mr Koh.

Edgar - Well you have assured your shareholders who are concerned whether they will get their dividend. Actually as a part-time MRT commuter, I am thinking of whether to become a shareholder and collect the dividend.

I cite again. "Mr Koh committed to doing more in the way of beefing up SMRT's operational and engineering competence in running its rail systems."

"Moreover, two big-ticket capex projects within the $900 million spending programme have been brought forward."

Edgar - Mr Koh, we thank you for the commitment to deliver to your future commuters/"customers".

I cite again. "Already, because of the December disruptions, SMRT has spent $4.4 million on legal and professional fees."

Edgar - May I have more details on the expenses? Should these expenses been incurred before the occurrence of disruptions and the Capex had been done earlier, could the disruptions have been avoided? If so, these additional expenses would have lowered the profit of previous years? Performance review of key officers and the Board could have been different?

I cite again. Mr Koh, on the constitution of the Board, "More (board) members with technical experience will be added to SMRT's Trains Board, he said. It was started within SMRT last October, populated with engineers to scrutinise operational and maintenance issues.

Edgar - Mr Koh, the Board should be applauded for this initiative to bring into Board expertise on operational and maintenance issues. But should we consider "replaced" instead "added"?

I cite again. "SMRT, Singapore's largest rail service operator, committed to the massive renewal programme in the wake of two major train disruptions last Dec 15 and 17, which affected over 220,000 passengers."

Edgar - Mr Koh, can SMRT do something more tangible to the more than 220,000 passengers who were affected by the disruptions? Singtel took away 4 minutes of our joys that built up over 8 months. One month's subscription waiver was granted to those affected. Yes the SMRT Board, LTA and the Minister have apologised and the ex-CEO have resigned. You have addressed the future customers, the shareholders, can SMRT do something for the affected past customers?

Mr Koh, thank you for reading.

Reference - Business Times, July 13, 2012.

Marketing in a Digital & Cross-Cultural World

our dining place

Evolution of communication models started with one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many models. Just when you thought this is as complex as it could be, the customers that these organisations and marketers are only TALKING TO initially, started to TALK BACK even when they are NOT being "talked to". Nowadays organisations have to utilise technologies to crawl all corners of the virtual world for any mention, comments and feedback about your organisation and your products and services. We are now living in a world where your listeners, customers, constituents etc TALK BACK to/at you.

In the discussion of marketing in "Second Life", organisations are using the virtual worlds to perform their study of possible human reactions to simulated situations. The use of Avatars provides some sort of "out of body" experience to some individuals. One study uses a handsome / beautiful avatar to represent a less-than proportionate human to conduct business discussion in the virtual world. These beautifully-avatared-individuals are observed to have done very well in these discussions. The more surprising thing is that the positiveness and confidence developed in virtual world are carried on into their real life. An aspect for further study by psychologists?

Why did Phillips decide to sell the TV business to Chinese? Hypothesis - Selling TV is a sunset biz 'cos people don't want or don't need to watch the same programme at the same time together no more. Entertainment has become very personalised using Tablets, laptops etc. We watch what we want to watch at our own time and convenience.

Consumers are prepared to be "fair" ie. pay $1 to download a song that could be used across a few platforms. But people are not prepared to pay for the whole album. The definition of "fairness" differs across individuals and organisations. People don't want to cheat if they can.

Social media can amplify positives and negatives. But on occassions, malicious videos about your organisations or your product/service could be made and placed on Youtube. But we could also have a real issue between an organisation and a customer which exploded into a major publicity nightmare. David Carroll made a satirical song about United Airlines breaking his guitar while being transported. The video was viewed by 11.9 millions people. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo)

G1, G2 and G3 population profile in Malaysia
It is observed that the Chinese Newspaper subscriptions are holding steady over the years. These newspapers are mainly read by the first generation of immigrants from China, G1. G2, the children of G1, are mostly educated in the British education system with English being the primary medium of instruction. G3, being the children of G2, are encouraged to rediscover their roots and also to achieve multi-lingual capabilties to ensure releavant in an increasingly gloabalised world.

What have you won?

One friend said democracy and true support won at the end of the day. He posted a picture of the victorious candidate at the back of "winning chariot" lorry, depicting grit, courage and victory in David vs Goliath battle. Another friend is still questioning the integrity of the man who has just been elected.. To my second friend, the victorious one has technically "misled" the electorate when he fumbled over a response on whether he did or did not withdraw his name from the ballot. His supporters labelled it as an attempt at assassinating his character. To his opponents and even the neutrals, such acts are normal projectiles going back and forth between opposing camps. Is it not part of rings of fire that competing candidates must go through for the electorate to know which is the better candidate?

Two men came and asked for your hand. One has a Christian name with the necessary credentials, strong blood line and expensive gifts from his land of plenty, IF you accept his hand of marriage. The other chap, his supporters called "Huat ahhhh", was brought in from the seaside district to woo you. He promised to work hard for you with all his sincerity. The fair maiden gave her heart to the latter despite all his shortcomings. The vanguished called the maiden, "You are special.." When people said you are special, I am not sure whether it is a compliment or otherwise. Is love really blind and blinding? Did the best man win?

A third opinion I read about the election is the most interesting. Whoever win must be good for Singapore, first and foremost.

When the result was announced, majority cheered and the minority licked their wound.

May I ask the majority of the enclave, what exactly have you won?

To intervene or not?

these 3 cars dare to anyhow park with no regard to safety

I spent my Friday with my old friends on a tiny 9-hole golf course in the middle of Johor. During dinner, an interesting series of exchanges ensued when I said US is moving towards more interventionist attitude after the free-market-created property busts crisis in 2007-2009.

My learned friend responded that it was interventionist attitude that had sparked off the crisis. The US government (can't remember led by which  president) came out with ideal cum ideal that encouraging home ownership is good for the country. That ideal led to the creation of Fannie May and Freddie Mac supporting home ownership with liberal home loans. Even people with no income "benefitted" from home ownership. This injection in funds into the property sector led to property price increase, initiating second mortgages and consequently the bubble burst. (Singapore too has a policy to encourage home ownership as part of its plan to encourage Singaporeans taking a stake in the nation's future.) The home ownership ideal may caused the crisis but did anyone count the gains from that same ideal eg. lower crime rate.)

I had not verified this line cause-and-effect proposed by my learned friend but it certainly sounds like something out from Freakonomics' philosophy.

We proceeded to discuss on Obama's victory in Court to ensure every American's right to be insured. I felt that it is good for the country not to saddle the government with more future costs by transferring the costs of servicing 30 millions Americans' healthcare to the collective mass of its citizens. We certainly do not wish US doing ala-IrishGreece.

My learned friend said Obama Care is bad for the economy as this interventionist move to force insurance on every American would raise the costs of hiring and retaining labour. American businesses hesitate in hiring more given the uncertainties.

My learned friend concluded the night's discussion that US would be in their glory if they allow free market to persist as per 1970s to 1990s. ( My quick retort was that US deficits and debt levels shot up higher during those years too. Based on my vague memory of US' statistics on this front.)

My final remark - In everything in life, there would be at least two sides to a story. But we always remember.. Every action, regardless of whether with good or bad intention, has a reaction.

Prof. Lim, have you lost your marbles?

Singapore, as we plan

On April 10, 2012, on the front page of Straits Times, Professor Lim Chong Yah (still proud to say I had the privilege of being your student) presented his "Economic Restructuring II" (ER II) ie. to raise the salary of those $1,500 or less by 50% over 3 years.

With the exception of a single vocal union member (and perhaps thousands of silent members) who called the ER II as a "real morale booster" and "long overdue", every notable senior member of establishment who came forward voiced their objection in various degrees of politeness.

The first off the block was Mr Lim Swee Say when he said on April 14, 2012, "This approach is VERY risky. What is at stake are jobs and structural unemployment." 

Minister of State for National Development Lee Yi Shyan warned of the consequences of pushing up wages ahead of productivity by using the analogy of injecting too much hormone into a person. For more examples of words against Prof Lim's proposal, please read http://theonlinecitizen.com/2012/04/prof-lim-chong-yahs-proposals-are-timely-and-should-be-implemented/. 

On May 1, 2012 being May Day, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has put in what employers hope will be the final word on Professor Lim's controversial proposal. Mr Lee said while he appreciate his good intentions and share his concern over this group of workers, he clearly and unequivocally said he does not agree with his drastic approach. Again he echoes the need for wages and productivity to go up in tandem.

PM Lee surprisingly questioned the relevance of National Wage Council's (NWC) existence as wages are no longer dictated by the NWC. Wages today are determined by the forces of globalisation and technology, something beyond the control of the tripartite committee. Could the end of NWC be near?

To demonstrate that the low-wage conundrum is NOT simply resolved by unilaterally raising their salaries, PM Lee presented three strategies that Singapore will exercised.

Quote

First, Singapore will remain open to the world and to business, by supporting free trade and investments, and striking a balance between foreign and local workers while seeking the "maximum advantage" for Singapore and Singaporeans. The second strategy is to keep growing the economy, restructure it to stay competitive, encourage companies and workers to boost productivity, and share the fruits of growth. Third, growth must be translated to higher wages, with special attention paid to low-wage workers who are most affected by globalisation and inflation. (Unquote)

Just two days after PM Lee's speech to the unions on May Day, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) has proposed to the NWC that "workers be given a minimum dollar amount as an increment to their basic pay - instead of getting it as a one-off payment" to beat inflation. A big gasp disbelief when I read that!!! Do they not get it that any pay increase without a corresponding productivity improvement is just a short term solution!!! But then, the proposed increase is definitely smaller than the quantum as proposed by Prof Lim.

My views

Despite the last part of perhaps a bit of shooting themselves in the foot, I am curious as to why Prof. Lim, a man of the establishment himself, would come forward and spark a debate in which he ended up defending singly against the rest of the establishment. I honestly do not think you have "lost your marbles".

Perhaps this is a new strategy of the establishment to bring their thinking/deliberation process in policy formulation into the open for all to see. Perhaps the debate over last few week represents a need to openly demonstrate to certain constituents that their concerns are seriously being considered. But the debate clearly demonstrates that we still have a problem with the low wage workers, inflation, rising costs to SME, etc.

While Prof. Lim may be credited with the "successful" wage restructuring between 1979 and 1981, perhaps he should just be like all heroes, get on the horse and ride towards and fade into the sunset.   

Open letter to HP Singapore Customer Service

Dear HP Singapore Management Team,

I wish to raise some issues for your response.

Situation - Sent in desktop for repair on Feb 17,2012. Collected on Tuesday (I think). The repair costs about $101.65. I was told I could not pay using Credit Card. I was told that I should have been informed to bring cash. Just when I was about to pay, the customer besides me asked and was told he could pay using credit card. I was puzzled. So I asked why the other customer can pay with credit card and I could not.

You noticed I am being about the details as the service documents have been taken from me when I collected my complimentary car park pass. (I think).

I was told about my desktop being another entity with a very strange sounding name. That entity has not installed the credit card machine yet.

1. Should a customer be informed that the equipment will be serviced by an external party even though it was collected by HP? I thought I was dealing with HP. I found out later that the entity was "Jabil Circuit (Singapore) Pte Ltd.

2. I am concerned as to how I am being charged for service rendered by an external service provider as compared to being serviced by HP. There is a difference in profit motivation and incentive motive here.

3. Is there a recording of the telephone conversation on the repair? I thought I had agreed to a lower service cost when I talked to the engineer.

4. HP has a practice of imprinting the service fees AFTER the customer had signed on the form.

5. Should third party supplier's name appear on HP documentation? Should third party credit card machines appear in HP service centre? Even if it is for accounting convenience, should the customer be inconvenienced?

6. I had wanted to raise my concern with the Service Manager at that point in time. But after waiting for about 10 mins, I was told that the Manager was not available and will contact me later. Till today, I am still waiting for the call.

7. I googled for an email address to privately address with HP on my concerns. But apparently, there is no channel for service quality issues. There are plenty of channels for sales, marketing and repair questions.

And thus this open letter to attempt to solicit a response.

Good day.

DBS Bank, what had happened exactly?

Dear DBS Bank,

I am writing with regard to the fraudulent ATM withdrawals as experienced by some 400 of your DBS/POSB accounts holders.

Between 4-5 Jan, there were postings circulating in Facebook telling us to go check our accounts as some people have found unauthorised withdrawals from their accounts. I usually dismissed such messages with much thought.

But on Jan 6, DBS Bank officially acknowledged the occurrence of such incidents and state that DBS Bank is prepared to make good any money illegally withdrawn from the accounts. The 400 affected customers who lost about $500,000 through unauthorised withdrawals were fully compensated within 24 hours of the incident. My sincere congratulations to this speedy decision and action that could have prevented a massive hysteria leading to a run on the bank. I guess when the decision was made to reimburse any losses suffered, the magnitude of damage may be seen to be limited.

On Jan 11, Piyush Gupta (DBS Bank's CEO) came forward to apologise officially for the inconvenience and anxiety caused. I will congratulate DBS Bank again for successfully managing the post-incident activities with aplomb. But I hope this apology from the top dog, does not signify the winding down and closure of an "unfortunate inconvenience".

I have a couple of concerns for your consideration.

Firstly, does DBS Bank's responsibility to compensate affected account holders limited at the amount illegally withdrawn? I heard, over the radio, of this nurse, in her early twenties, in a hysteria state, as she expressed her emotional stress experienced when she realised that her hard earned money could just disappeared from her account!! We all placed our hard earned money with one bank or another, in good faith. In good faith that a service provider/bank who acts as a custodian of our assets, has put in place sufficient and reasonable level of security measures to protect our assets. This thus lead me to ask the next question - Has DBS Bank put in place sufficient and reasonable level of security measures to prevent occurrence of such illegal withdrawals?

My third question - What has exactly happened? 
On Jan 11, Piyush Gupta reassured us that there was no internal involvement in the incident. While you have confirmed no internal fooling around, I am still pretty hazy as to how a few individuals working from outside the bank applying a relatively low tech/little brain technique of copying data and duplicating cards in a hotel room in Geylang could outwit DBS Bank to the tune of $1million?

Thank you and awaiting your response.