The outburst of reports on cases of fraudulance through the modus of
fake investment plans kept rolling on. Time after time there were always new
victims who were deceived by sweet promises of high investment yields in
incredible amount. Many capital owners were easily tempted by sweet promises of
investment agents who offered attractive investment returns, only to suddenly
realize soon their money had vanished in the hands of fleeing cheaters.
Even in developing countries cases of felony also very frequently
happened under the name of ponzi scheme. The first example a bubble investment
plan created by madoff who were finally punished for evidently breaking the law
through the ponzi scheme. The loss incurred was more than USD 50 billion.
Report had it that list of victims included some of the world’s leading
banks. The mastermind was bernand L. Madoff wih madoff investment securities
LLC as investment agency. The scheme being execised was the same as the ponzi
classic scheme.
Bernand L. Madoff was a figure of high reputation at the investment
market since 1960. As known, madoff was ex chairman of the board of directors
of nasqad. The loss incurred due to this ponzi was around USD 34 – 50 billion.
The victims were more than just measly investors, but big banks like HSBC.
Investors trusted in madoff because he was man of high reputation in investment
business.
In court mardoff, owner of mardoff investment securities said that ponzi
system was developed in all countries in managing pubic fund. Perhaps such was
the fact in developed countries. In Indonesia the process was much simpler but
the victims never seemed to get tired of being tormented by fraudulence.
This greatest case of fenoly of all time in the US financial market had
blackened the image of Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] in the USA. Invest
questioned how could SEC be off guard aganst crime which had been going on for
years.
A Second example was a case of
fenoly committed by an Italian Mafioso living in the USA, Charles ponzi, who
played his dirty game to reap money. The term ponzi system was taken from
Charles ponzi who lived in boston, USA.
Ponzi was well know for his cheating by offering investment in the form
of speculative transactions of US stamps against foreign stamps in 1919 – 1920.
Ponzi set up the security exchange company I desember 26, 1919 which promised
return of 40% in 90 days; in fact the normal bank interest at that time was 5%
per year. In less than one year, it was estimated that around 40,000 people
confided around USD 15 million of their money in ponzi system.
It was unveiled that the profit that ponzi promised was made byhook and
by crook. In mid august 1920, the government’s audit on ponzi’s business
unveiled that ponzi had gone bankrupt. The totalasset of around USD 1.6 billion
that he had was way below the amount than ponzi owed his clients.
A third example that humiliated the US governments and all the money
authorities in America was sales of promissory notes based on sub-prime
mortgage as underlying transaction.
Securitizing of high-risk mortgage being globally traded had made some
US based international financial institutions run out of business, some of
which were rescued by the US government. This case even dragged US economy even
deeper in crisis which made president Barrack Obama inject trillions of dollars
of bail out. The after effect of this case was still felt today as indicated by
world’s economic slowdown.
Realizing of risk of greater danger in the future, leaders, financial
ministers abd central bank governors of the G-20 club of national had run
continual express meetings since 2012 to 2013 last. One of the outstanding and
noteworthy resolutions of the meeting was that financial authorities and
financial institutions as players of industry ensured maximum protection to
capital owners as consumers. Accordingly, the consumer protection scheme was
becoming and important subject in many discussion forum.
At the G-20 meeting on april 2, 2009 last in London, a joint communiqué
was made consiting of some key priorities which was common facus, i.e.
prevention of protectionism, reformation of the financial sector, abolishing tax
haven, enhancing the role of developing countries and new stimulus.
In the effort to keep global; crisis from becoming a world recession,
attendants of the G-20 forum had made a joint communique at the London summit
that world leaders of the G-20 had agreed to inject stimulus fund. The
commitment had materialized I raising fund of USD 1.1 trillion to re-vitalize
economic growth, increase demand of manpower and the employment sector, and to
build and strengthen market confidence in the global financial sector.
This G-20 meeting a arrived at an agreement to inject fund to be economy
of each respective nations to anticipate the unexpected. Meanwhile other
stimulating policy was needed in the form of fiscal policy exceeding the agreed
fund injection to the financial sector, a commitment for the fiscal policy
which included USD 5 trillion for allocated financing till end of 2010.
Among the tringgers of global crisis was the operations of “shadow
banking” institutions legal or illegal which functioned as banks, including
insurance companies, banks, fund managers and hedge funds. However, since these
bodies were out of reach of the law, and were operating trans-nationally, many
countries were in no position to force them to implement the principle of good
governance.
Therefore, the spirit of G-20 meeting was to run reformation in the
global financial system including to discipline the “naughty boys” whether fund
managers or even “safe finance havens” to obey the proper financial rules. The
consequence of this agreement was obligation for players of the financial
industry to exercise the principles of market discipline.
It was expected that this financial reformation could motivate the
world’s financial sector to run the process of internal audit and clean up
their deposit fund from what was known as toxic asset which was derivative
products and non performing asset/loan so banks could be expected to be
healthier an play their true role of banks.
In principle the reformation of global banking system had their agenda
the mission to direct shadow banking including hedge funds to obey global
policy rules, to prepare international accountancy system, to regulate credit
rating agencies and most of all to try to end domination of tax haven countries
which offered tax cuts and forced tax haven countries, who used to be stingy,
to share information about their investors.
Consumer protection organization of many countries proposed that the
G-20 meeting also dissected matters on protection for consumers of financial
services. They believed that common endeavor in consumers protection had the
potential of assuring sound austerity for national financial institutions
through coordinator in he survey for developing guidelines and standardization;
toward best practices in avoiding costly crisis.
As a matter of fact within the G-20 itself heaps of homework must be
done by leaders of the nation. An example was how to protect consumers,
depositors and investors in aggressive marketing practices. Not less important
was promote good standard of banking services for better client protection.
Therefore, the organization for consumer’s protection was highly
supportive to the formation of consumer protection expert group whereby to
exercise the message of the G-20 group. They saw that the financial crisis that
happened was on account of ineffectiveness the regulations and mi-practices of
consumer’s credit extention; which was also why crisis worsened and swiftly
spread out to other countries to threaten people’s income, savings, and social
stability.
Each year, the global economy generated around 150 million new customers
in finance business; most of them were in developing nations where financial
knowledge was low. In a world where interdependency was high, banking crisis
that occurred in one country would erode consumer’s trust with unexpected
international consequences.
In various reported consumer’s complaint over the past 5 years, the
financial sector had always been in top-three position as object of consumer’s
complaint. The three industries were : banking, telecommunication, and housing.
In this case the government of RI as a member of G-20 was bound to the
resolution, so it was necessary to foster common effort to re-formulate
policies in the international financial sector so sustainable global financial
stability could be maintained.
If the re-structurization of the financial sector were successful
Indonesia would be among the nations being advantaged because so far Indonesia
had always been the target of hedge fund players which threatened monetary
stability. Firmly the meeting of ministers and central bank governors of the
G-20 group finally had agreed on the principles of consumers protection in
finance service business.
In this case Indonesia was the motor of proposal of consumers protection
in financial business. The G-20 meeting designated two institutions, i.e. the
financial service board [FSB] and the organization of economic and development
[OECD] to map out the principle needs of he protection system. The two institutions
would run a survey in all member countries about consumer protection practices
in financial services whereafter a conclusion would be made and be reported to
G-20 members.
There were three points of focus of the FSB and OECD. Firstly the
mechanism of dispute settlement between banks or non-bank financial
institutions and customers. In this case the best possible solution would soon
be seen. Secondly, FSB and OECD also saw the financial products being offered
by financial institutions, including prohibition of abuseprone products.
Thirdly, FSB and OECD also reviewed possible compulsion of each country
to enhance transparency and education, especially to promote education toward
financial literacy among the people. All the principles agreed upon would soon be
implemented in he form of regulation in all member countries.
The point of agreement made at the “meeting of G 20 finance ministers
and central bank governors” was a follow:
“We committed to set high, internationally consistent, coordinated and
non-discriminatory re-quirements in our legislations and regulations
implementing FSB recommendations on OTC derivatives markets and stressed the
need to avoid overlapping regulations. We urge all jurisdictions to fully
implement the FSB principles and standards on compensation. We call on the FSB
to undertake ongoing monitoring in this area and will assess the results of the
2nd peer review on compensation practices by our next meeting. We will review
at our next meeting progress made by the IASB and FASB towards completing their
convergence project by the end of 2011 and look forward to the outcome of the
ongoing IASB governance review process. We welcomed ongoing work of OECD and
FSB and other relevant international organizations to develop common principles
on consumer protection in financial services.”
So important was consumers’ protection for consumers of the financial
sector that even the leaders of G-20 states formulated the matter as common
guideline to re-structure the world’s financial system and make it fairer, more
moral and beneficial to the people’s welfare. (SS)
Business News - April 17,2013
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