President's Message Chief Editor's Message

President’s Message

by Alfred Chia, CFP®

Alfred Chia, CFP®

With the year coming to an end, Covid-19 continues to terrorize the World. We have learned to combat it with Circuit Breaker, social distancing, wearing a mask, SafeEntry checkin, zoom, etc. It is certainly a year of much new learning and ritual. Many of us call it the ‘New Normal’.

At FPAS, we have organized our first Virtual Financial Planner Awards 2020. After months of waiting, we finally are able to announce the winners. We are glad to have the understandings and support of everyone. We are honored to have Ms. Abigail Ng, Executive Director, MAS as our Guest of Honour. Her speech, “Strengthening Financial Resilience Amid a Crisis” is a good reminder of the importance of being resilient. We are excited that Mr. Noel Maye, CEO of FPSB, took the time to share on the global initiatives.

You can still watch the Award Ceremony at fpa.sg. We have received good response and comments on the Award Ceremony. Great work by Samantha and her team. While this may be the ‘New Normal’, many of us do miss social networking and human interaction.

Another ‘New Normal’ will be Virtual Financial Advisory. This has accelerated the adoption of technology such as digital financial planning tools. Both the customers and financial

Chief Editor’s Message

by Yash Mishra, CFP®

Yash Mishra, CFP®

This is the year where the pandemic took center stage and upended our lives as we knew it. New words, phrases, and acronyms that have become part of our everyday vocabulary- New normal, pandemic, social distancing, Covid fatigue, WFH (Work From Home), online classes, flattening the curve, masks as part of everyday fashion, and Zoom meetings to name a few. But in all of this runs a common invisible force- the indomitable human spirit of “Resilience” and that is what we dedicate this issue of “financial planning magazine to – “Building Financial Resilience”

Singapore Government here announced the Solidarity Budget 2020 and outlined a series of measures to support and save jobs, supporting workers and protecting livelihood and support for the affected sectors. The budget outlines solid measures taken timely for supporting businesses during the extremely difficult time when the Singapore economy plunged into recession. We discuss these unprecedented supportive Resiliency and Recovery measures in the Singapore budget Article.

Rapid Digitisation is an outcome of this pandemic and we discuss how as practitioners planning practitioners are learning to adapt and are coping very well.

On the financial front, many businesses have to close and many jobs are lost due to the impact of Covid-19. It has turned many family’s financial situation upside down. Many longterm financial goals like children’s education, property mortgages, and retirement planning were severely disrupted.

It is such times that the Financial Advisory Industry need to step up our efforts to help such families navigate through the difficulties through financial planning.

Like many, I prayed for the development of a safe vaccine for Covid-19 soon. Until then, keep safe and healthy. It is also important to ensure our financial health is in the pink of health!

we can adapt & adopt digital tools in “Financial planner in the Digital Era” and what strategies to adopt to grow your practices in “Growth strategies for your financial practice in a pandemic”.

Building resilience flows through in the consumer section and into understanding the elements of Investment portfolios that need to withstand market volatility as was seen this earlier in March 2020, in “Building a resilient Investment portfolio” and “Resilience to Retirement portfolios”. We help you understand, the challenges that remain as you plan ahead in “Post Covid-19 financial planning” and “Boosting your financial resilience”.

As central banks around the world, led by the US Fed reserve help economies and countries navigate around he unprecedented effect of the economic shutdown, forced by the pandemic through supportive monetary and fiscal policy, we recommend in our book section review exbank of England, Governor Mervyn King’s book – “The End of Alchemy”.

Stay Healthy and Stay safe everyone in an unprecedented year that was 2020.