India - challange of the financial system

Working on an Indian financial market I might declare following statements:

a) it is too expensive for the developed financial company to start operation

Office
.... as the good quality rent costs a fortune together with deposit
.... as the local air is so bad u need an air purification
.... as the energy effectivity of buildings is bad

Company setup
.... it takes too long
.... it has crazy rules + local advisors are useless offering you only all in equity solutions. I am not willing for every EUR I invest in country to invest as equity
.... lot of "It works like this in India it works like this over the world non-senses"

Banking
.... very bad shape. Few banks, literally few. For an economy like India to have a handful of whole India banks owned by government and the rest of the banks to be local government or municipality owned. One new licence since 1996! This is so backwards for a country of the India size
.... lazy bankers testing you what u take as normal and squeezing every cent u have unless 10% is left in their pockets
.... no being able to hold the foreign currency on you account but immediately to  change it to Rupiah. And for what rate? For EUR you loose around 5% if you dont pressure your bank to fix the rate before money arrives!
.... every foreing incoming transaction to be documented
.... loosing value of Rupiah in time
.... very hard withdrawal of money out of India

b) running the company
.... 80% people doesnt have bank accounts
.... 80% of transactions happening in cash
.... sudden withdrawal of 500 and 1000 notes from economy as happened on 8.11.2016
.... piles of cash in the homes of  rich not being deposited....thus not being able to reinvest
.... borrowing on behalf of pledge of property only
.... 5 people in bank to do simple transactions
.... bad transportation (need 2 hours to get on a meeting on average)
.... no sense of time and urgency
.... keeping the bankers jobs for the family members, no competition
.... BOI saving bad debts by purchasing them...not solving the situation unless it is very bad
.... not a proper debt collection (touch or no touch wise)
.... huge variability within the country in languages and writings

c) controlling the company
.... "I am going to close you" approach to get things done
.... "not thinking about the numbers" unless it really affects me
.... "low life expectations"....people in India suffer and are ready to suffer
.... nobody cares approach
.... family foremost, no need to care of neighbour
.... tax avoidance

Therefore I would like to Mr. Modi to continue his effort. Open financial system to new subjects. Let the system change. Increase the confidence in state as itself and decrease the scare of the state officials. Make a new better rules to allow investments to India. Distribute wealth between people and make them socially more aware.

Singapore - CFO position

Being in Singapore may be more about holding risks of different countries than really caring 100% about Singapore only. It is a safe haven where u can close the door, have a nice food and focus on what u feel is good to decrease risks.

Talking of China to make anything possible to use proper mandarin words and talk to people that have done something similar there. Protect your position and mainly no to throw money inside. Just keep the money home and family safe :)

Talking of India get a great contact and nurture them. There are nice people there, very clever and quick. It is not so easy to find and it is worth to talk to them. India is a continent itself. And therefore it is full of different countries and success stories.

Indonesia is a great one. So many layers of doing what you need. Such a need not to be seen if you can not afford to be seen. Close to Singapore and far away. Being international company & understanding to what extend it is worth it.

I it is a privilege & challenge. Not to be 100% correct. Just to be 1% better than last visit :)

India - current currency challenge

Being in India is these days very hard.
People, even having savings, could bot utilize them to buy anything. 80% of economy is cash based. And from this 80% it is estimated that 80% was in 1000 and 500 banknotes. Therefore 64% of all Monetary M0 is gone. 64%!

Please understand.

Normal bank charging 10% interest rate will need to turn over by this step just lost 640% of the cash flow!

This is a huge step.

Business in China - finance

Doing business in China may be different in various segments, size and employees the company has. Lets assume everything else kept constant (we have a company that is already over BEP, relatively good management, growing market) why is our branch in China asking as for another money and why we have a feeling there is not everything very clean.

China is amazing by one thing. It grows and it changes. Before it was growing, but not changing. You can produce a lot, control the quality, be strict on price but friendly. But to succeed in China you needed money. It was like a hole, never ending hole. You could buy/invest/purchase and earn. But you needed money to do so.

Now the time changed. It is more possible to get financing locally. It is not hard to look on shadow financing, FX solutions, over the border conversions. You just need one think. Expect it is possible and ask and ask and ask. Once you hear something is impossible be really careful. Chinese like to say it. And they like to be politely challenged. Do that and miracles will come. Maybe you could be even instead of spending there and earning outside China on China products be able to earn in China and enjoy your money outside of China.

For more detail please contact me :)

SG-US and election in United states

"Election in United states on 8th of November 2016 (Tuesday) will not be a catastrophe nor a think that will inmediately increase the price of bread": my opinion. "It will not effecting us inmediately in normal life change the way we already see and will see the American economy in medium term and therefore change the life of real people in medium term too." The most dangerous about this is a time lag between cause and effect. It is like an invasion of Russian soldiers to Crimea. No effect on Russians inmediately, but now after 2 years we sense normal Russian people are suffering. And I am brave enough to say it is 50% caused by the invasion. (Suffering I define as a difference between a life style before and after invasion, on behalf my epirical research in Russia and analysing Russian data).

My prediction, in this moment is following:

It will be rather good for US and world if Trump wins in long term(4-..). I predict his win.

In short term (0-0.5 year) it is without dramatic influence. In medium term (0.5-4 years)

I expect:
Short term:
Trump will analyse the problems with his business thinking. Will try to be on as many meetings as possible and listen and understand. He will ask a few people to leave within his circle inmediately. Especially people appear to be dummy on a first sight. People not being able to asnwer a simple question. And of course people he can allow to fire. That will, to certain point, be a suprise. But not a big game changer. He will also seek for a people on his side. I am afraid his team is not too strong now.

Medium term:
It will be seen the change of the game in US. There is a risk of Dallas 1960's. Chinese economy in fall, USD controlling exchange rate and keeping it low. Unemployment rate up, especially from former government employees. Normal business people maybe poorer in comparison with the world, but with more jobs. Stronger export of less sophisticated services/goods. Stronger police control within US. More volatility on market, less spending and therefore slowing internetional economy.

Long term:
Allies more focusing on covering their costs on the protection/army. Russia knowing his borders and getting out of Ukraine, but staying in Crimea. China loosing position in the region and globally.   US stronger. Euro to US attacking 1,2 with additional pressure on south nations like Greece.

SG attracting investors

Many of the companies would like to get to Singapore or start their business in Singapore as they seek for funding. There is now the bug amount of opportunities for such seekers. It will incure some cost to stay in Singapore for 6 month to get the real feeling of the market, so u need to be ready to finance that. We talk about 30.000 SGD plus (20.000 EUR).

Startup to small company - accelerators...seek an oportunity there

SME - lawyers, private equity companies, venture capitalists

Large corporates - funds, banks.

Important is to prepare financial numbers and introduction of your business. Financial numbers need to focus on one simple thing, especially for SME, startup and small companies. How will you generate sales. Forget now on the focus on the costs. Tell the people how will u generate sales.

SG - finance and banking

Banking in Singapore for foreigners works much harder than you would expect. If you have experience from Hong Kong for example you would be surprised by amount of data bank would like like to gather. Additionally the big surprise is once you provide all the information bank will probably get lost in it and disapprove your application. Just for the sake of complexity. That is really against all what I did go trough once I was a banker. I was always interested to know as much as possible about my client and once the client did dare to share I did feel comfortable and was keen to make business. Regulation nowadays did get just to the point, where truth is much less desirable than simple solution. Just for sake of we have done what regulation did ask us to be done. Banks are, therefore, very weak. They open enormous space for shadow banking, for the same banks not following all the regulation. As it is getting to the point where deposit on account has negative interest rate but to open bank account is super hard. How u can do business that way?