By Elysa Chen

SHE is broke, sick and desperate. And yesterday, she turned up at Speakers' Corner for a gathering organised by the former chief executive of NTUC Income, Mr Tan Kin Lian.

The 60-year-old retiree, who wanted to be known only as Ms Lim, wanted to find out if she could recover any of the $300,000 that she had sunk into toxic structured products.

She suffers from lupus, a disease that occurs when a body's immune system attacks its own tissue and organs.

The last year had been a difficult one for her, she said, with 90 per cent of her life savings and CPF savings wiped out.

'Every night, I cannot sleep. I'm carrying this burden by myself and I feel so guilty,' said Ms Lim.

'My husband doesn't know that I lost all this money. My children don't know because I am afraid they will tell my husband. What if he gets so angry that he divorces me?'

She said that her broker did not offer her any compensation. She was in the crowd of 150 who gathered at the Hong Lim Park yesterday.

The group was there to listen to a speech by Mr Tan, who plans to submit a petition to the Prime Minister, calling for a similar settlement as the one that investors in Hong Kong got.

More than 700 had signed the online petition earlier.

Mr Tan called for the gathering after reading news reports that financial institutions in Hong Kong, which had sold similar products, were paying compensations of 60 per cent of the invested sums.

He said: 'I am always optimistic that people will find help. The move by Great Eastern to give a full refund to their clients and the settlement sums paid in Hong Kong might be good benchmarks for Singapore banks.'

Financial institutions have offered investors different degrees of compensation, ranging from full compensation to offers of 10 per cent of the sum invested, depending on how well they can prove that theirs was a case of mis-selling, said investors.

Banned

After a seven-month investigation, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in July banned 10 financial institutions from selling new structured notes for between six months and two years.

The banks and brokerages will not be allowed to resume selling such products until they show that they have set up satisfactory processes for providing advisory services.

Although the number of those who turned up yesterday was nowhere near the crowds of 700 that Mr Tan drew in last year, the investors who turned up were 'prepared to fight'.

One of them, Mr Philip Soh, 61, a financial consultant, had not invested any of his money in such products. But he showed up because he had friends who lost money and he wanted to fight for them.

He said: 'I feel sorry for these innocent investors. Some of them are housewives who lost their life savings, which were supposed to tide them over in their old age.

'There is ample evidence of mis-selling and our authorities can do more to help these victims.'

A businessman, who wanted to be known only as Mr Ng, said that he was there because he wanted to let the authorities know that his hard-earned money has still not been returned.

Many were frustrated that they received no offers of compensation despite making several trips to the bank and sitting in at long meetings.

Mrs Cho, 47, a compliant manager, said: 'We have nowhere to go.'

The gathering provided a glimmer of hope for Mrs Cho, who has appealed to her bank to no avail.

She said: 'I'm still hoping that something can be done to right this injustice.

'If a customer gets food poisoning after eating at a high-class restaurant, is it his fault for not checking the restaurant more thoroughly?

'I just hope the public will understand that many of us lost our hard-earned money because we trusted a reputable bank that no one expected would produce toxic products like High Notes 5.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on .