Singapore, 5th largest financial centre in the world, has no talents in banking and finance and needed to import all and sundry from third world Indian villages

 

 Below are two comments by C Soon Hock and Philip Wen in the former's facebook page. I hope they don't mind me reproducing their comments as they are already being forwarded many, many times in Whatsapp. Both are veteran bankers that lived through the heydays when Singapore was the 5th largest financial centre in the world and Singaporeans were in the thick of things. Those were the days when banking and bankers were mostly Singaporeans.  Goh Keng Swee made it so, demanded it to be so. Singapore was built for Singaporeans not funny locals that are foreigners.

Singapore as a world financial centre was Goh Keng Swee's baby. Today, if he were alive and to read the following two comments, he would have jumped off from the tallest building in Singapore's Mumbai Financial Centre. The financial centre that he built for Singaporeans is now run by Indians from third world India, soon everyone in the banks, from CEO to clerical staff, frontline and backroom and IT would be taken over by the Indians. 

The world's 5th largest financial centre could not find any Singaporeans good enough to run the banks, even low level jobs, and have to go to third world India's villages, whose financial centre is lowly ranked in the 50s, for banking talents. And now the Ceca Indians having been allowed to move in to replace nearly all the Singaporeans are speaking through their megaphones that Singapore has no talents, not limited to banking and finance talents, and despising and sneering at the stupid Singaporeans that are now the taxi drivers driving them and their wives around town or delivering food and groceries to their new Singapore homes.

How did this sordid state of affair happen to Singapore and to the Singaporeans? Who is or are the imbeciles that allowed this to happen? Did they know that our founding fathers fought and built this island city state for Singaporeans, not foreigners, not Johnny come lately?

The two comments below are very painful to read as they were telling a very sickening chapter in our history that could only get worse and no way of turning back. Singapore and Singaporeans are gone and the foreigners, especially the Ceca Indians, are taking over, lock, stock and barrel, in a matter of times.

Anyone still wondering why xenophobia is raising its ugly head in Singapore?

 

https://www.facebook.com/100003526877073/posts/as-a-veteran-in-the-banking-industry-with-nearly-40-years-of-experience-myself-h/3925172964276894/

 

C. Soon Hock

As a veteran in the banking industry with nearly 40 years of experience myself, having worked in MAS/GIC, Tokyo, New York, Singapore, top US investment banks, top Japanese bank, my own asset management firm, I can understand and agree to what is written below as I witness the changes in the banking industry here from 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and now 2021.

I am saddened and very disappointed to what has happened in the manpower area to our own Singaporeans.

Personally, I take it upon myself through these nearly 40 years to train and create as many jobs & opportunities for fellow Singaporeans especially younger ones into and in the banking industry with my limited personal time, constrained firm's resources, network, structure and knowledge. I am still at it as a thankful and loyal beneficiary to my fellow Singaporeans. I have spent millions of my own hard earned money on young Singaporeans and supported many and glad that some are holding senior & well paying banking jobs & some as skillful risk taking fund managers/traders. For many years my small firm trained, provided risk capital and paid 5 to 12 young Singaporean graduates each year and helped them to get a foothold into the industry, since 2003.

As Rcvd:

Philip Wen

I was asked this question about CECA. This is wholly my personal opinion based on my experience.

Are there sectors of our economy to which Singaporeans can contribute equally well if not better than foreign manpower?

The banking and finance sectors are where Singaporeans have excelled in. Singaporeans have worked very well with fellow Asians and Westerners forming an excellent symbiotic bridge thus establishing Singapore itself as a Major Financial center globally. We did this with only a sprinkling of expats with the majority being locally born and raised Singaporeans. During the 1980s, 90s and 2000s, we had expats coming in but not in droves. As a senior Trader in FX and Bonds, I actually trained many overseas Bankers who came to Singapore to LEARN from us. They came from regional banks throughout Asia including the Reserve bank of India! Our expertise in the Banking field has no equal within Asia including Tokyo and HK. This is because of our usage of English as the common language and the natural abilities to pick up new financial products which helped propelled Singapore into becoming the "Switzerland of the East." There is absolutely NO WAY that these "so-called foreign talents" in the past few years could have outperformed Singaporeans in the field of Banking.

I often visited Mumbai- "the financial center of India" to introduce new products and hi-tech trading platforms to their team of "experts". Some of these offices do not even have air-conditioning with open windows and floor standing fans scattered everywhere! The entire trading department has only ONE Bloomberg terminal to be shared amongst the lot of them! In TATA head office, they still use rattan and school chairs and desks as office furniture! During certain periods of their hot season, they have frequent power outages causing their internet network to crash and we have to climb up 25 floors. They don't even have their own dedicated phone lines. PCs and trading platforms need to be shared- each with their different login passwords!! Please remember that this was the state of affairs in the early 2000s! Not in the 1960s or 70s!!

How can they possibly be considered "talented" when the infrastructure they have cannot even support daily work activities?

How can they be "talented" when the majority doesn't even meet a foreigner on a daily basis to discuss international trading activities and financial stuff?

How can they be "talented" when their Indian rupee is tightly controlled and not traded internationally?? With severe currency controls, their FX, Equities, Bonds, and Capital assets are not even traded internationally and are out of bounds to all except local Indians.

Lacking in international banking and finance exposure and credentials in their own country, CECA Indians promptly replaced our experienced local PMETs in all fields of FX, Bonds, traders, marketing, back office, front office, compliance, risk management, public relations, relationship managers, investment banker, capital market experts, fixed-income analysts, anti-money laundering, HR, onboarding and more such jobs in the Banking sector. Jobs robbed from Singaporeans under the very noses of our "so-called talented" government. Nobody in the government actually did any studies about the Indians' suitability in these 126 professions before opening the gates to paradise!

Through CECA, they have leapfrogged our years of toil, banking culture, and sacrifices of generations of Singaporeans to take over the world's 5th largest Financial Center!

Meanwhile, Mumbai Financial Center is ranked a lowly "65" in 2020! Even Kuala Lumpur fared better at 47 despite the ongoing 1 MDB fiasco and government corruption. Mumbai - grappling with overpopulation, extreme poverty, corruption at all levels. Yet, they are deemed better than us in terms of talents.

CECA has in fact caused a " knowledge and talent" drain in favor of our Indian neighbours by providing them with a comfortable working environment. Provide them with very very high pay. Provide them with homes and places to enjoy this beautiful island nation. When their job is done in Singapore, they will simply return home and replicate what they have learned from Singapore. Meanwhile, our local PMETs serve them now as taxi drivers, GRAB deliveries, cleaners, security officers........

In summary, we created paradise only to give it away to foreigners.

I will stop here. I have to drive GRAB to make a livin