FOR the past 1 ½ months, I had been making preparation to prepare what I want to do this year. This year, I want to focus on helping retirees to have their wealth well managed.

This market is in my opinion not well served. Existing products are not appealing -either they are really not good from technical point of view or it is not well packaged for the retirement segment. In terms of marketing, a lot of effort has been made by the financial institutions to help young people saved up for retirement, but not much has been made to help people who are already retired. I have spoken to some retired person – either they just put all their money in Singapore denominated fixed deposits or they just “play shares.” Both are sure way of courting disaster. In the former case, the guaranteed erosion of inflation is a slow but steady way to disaster. In the latter case, I need not further elaborate how dangerous this is. What I’ll be doing will be as follows:

1. Research a suitable retiree’s portfolio to provide an alternative to a life annuity plan. (Done, part of the research will be published end of Feb 2008 in revamped financial magazine). I’ll not fully disclose the details of the research in public because it can be easily replicated by my competitors. Although not difficult to implement by many financial advisers, the idea is innovative. It also requires coordination with financial institutions. 
2. To provide seminar and talk for alumni and associations with high cluster of retiring individuals. (Two seminars have been arranged so far. Need to look for another six more opportunity to talk).
3. I might want to create a separate web-site for the retirement market. Not those websites that gives a lot of information but with no help in execution. I want to create a website that gives practical information.
4. I’ll be putting effort to ask my younger clients what their retiring (or about to retired) parents what they really need so that I can cater to their needs.