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It could have been you or me

A lesson in HUMILITY and giving, from Warren Buffett and others

Mak Yuen Teen

Recently, Mr Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the United States, published his philanthropic pledge in which he committed to giving away 99 per cent of his wealth.

This was part of an initiative with Mr Bill Gates and his wife Melinda to get hundreds of rich Americans to pledge at least 50 per cent of their wealth to charity.

What touched me the most was the GREAT HUMILITY Mr Buffett displayed.

First, he said that, while what he was giving away was large in an absolute sense, many others who are less well off give more in a comparative sense, including those who give generously of their time to help others.

Second, he did not attribute his great wealth to him being superior to others.

“My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes and compound interest,” he said.

“Both my children and I won what I call the OVARIAN LOTTERY. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the US were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.)

“My LUCK was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in a economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on the battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thankyou notes from parents

but rewards those who can DETECT the MISpricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.

“In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.”

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will COSCO return to its former GLORY ? ? ? ?

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national day bearry ? ? ? ?

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To most people, DBS Bank got off lightly for the seven hour breakdown of its online and branch banking systems on July 5. Perhaps too lightly, for the amount of inconvenience and embarrassment caused by rejected credit cards and not being able to draw cash from the bank’s 1,000-odd ATM machines across the island.

LAWS DO NOT ALLOW A FINE

However, MAS clarified that current laws [?] do not allow the authority to impose a fine on our banks for such infringements, although they can be subject to financial penalties such as having to set aside more money to cover risks — meaning, they cannot lend out that sum of money to make more money.

In any case, how large a fine can anyone impose on a financial institution, without hurting innocent stakeholders, including customers and shareholders?

A fIne also does little to assuage a wronged, inconvenienced or dissatisfied customer as it just ends up in the kitty of the authorities, and not the people who suffered.

Perhaps there should be a review of the rules regarding similar infringements of Internet banking and technology risk management guidelines, with some emphasis on speedily compensating affected customers without the need to engage in costly lawsuits.

MAS should also be able to extend its reach to take appropriate action against vendors and others involved in providing financial hardware and software services, including those providing outsourced services.

[# Can MERITOCRACY be OUTSOURCED ???? #]

To some extent, the ball is in DBS Bank’s court to assuage its stakeholders. True, DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta has offered his apologies several times over the past month for the inconvenience caused.

But is an apology enough to satisfy all customers?

Yes, it will be difficult to ascertain who actually suffered on that fateful July day. Still, a simple gesture of goodwill — say, an ice cream or a chocolate bar for all customers on a particular day — could go some way to recovering lost goodwill.

Or, DBS could make an appropriate donation to some charity or organisation in the name of all wronged or inconvenienced customers.

Conrad Raj

conrad@mediacorp.com.sg

The writer is Editor-at-Large at Today.

The financial burden placed on DBS by its regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) — the bank must set aside [What is this ?] an additional $230 million to cover operational risk — was a minor slap, or rather tap, on the wrist for a bank so flush with cash that it has not got enough good customers to lend to.

The MAS has told MediaCorp that banks “are subject to financial penalties, regulatory sanctions, supervisory actions or reprimands if they fail to meet MAS regulatory or supervisory requirements.

MAS believes [?] the regulatory actions taken [?] against DBS are proportionate to the nature, severity and impact of the incident”.

There are those who would disagree that the actions were proportionate to the nature, severity and impact of the disruption. [# nOt Meritocratic ? ? ? ? #]

The MAS should have tried to ascertain the financial impact to customers and businesses — at least the more serious losses.

Yes, DBS was censured in a strongly-worded reprimand and was asked to adopt measures to minimise the risk of such an outage taking place again. The MAS has also asked the bank to conduct an independent review of the incident and to improve its customer communication process to ensure timely communication with stakeholders.

And Ms Teo Swee Lian, the regulator’s deputy managing director of Financial Supervision, is on record as saying: “MAS takes a serious view of this incident. We expect [dId nOt chEck ?] all financial institutions to put in place a robust technology risk management framework that will ensure the reliability, resilience and speedy recoverability of the institution’s IT systems and infrastructure, whether outsourced or in-house.

“We have recently written to the CEOs of all financial institutions to remind them of this. MAS will not hesitate to take appropriate supervisory action against any financial institution which fails to meet the standards set in the IBTRM Guidelines.” Still, as the saying goes:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

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