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NIK ZAFRI BIN ABDUL MAJID,
CONSULTANT/TRAINER
Email: nikzafri@yahoo.com, nikzafri@gmail.com
https://nikzafri.wixsite.com/nikzafri

Kelantanese, Alumni of Sultan Ismail College Kelantan (SICA), IT Competency Cert, Certified Written English Professional US. Has participated in many seminars/conferences (local/ international) in the capacity of trainer/lecturer and participant.

Affiliations :- Network Member of Gerson Lehrman Group, Institute of Quality Malaysia, Auditor ISO 9000 IRCAUK, Auditor OHSMS (SIRIM and STS) /EMS ISO 14000 and Construction Quality Assessment System CONQUAS, CIDB (Now BCA) Singapore),

* Possesses almost 30 years of experience/hands-on in the multi-modern management & technical disciplines (systems & methodologies) such as Knowledge Management (Hi-Impact Management/ICT Solutions), Quality (TQM/ISO), Safety Health Environment, Civil & Building (Construction), Manufacturing, Motivation & Team Building, HR, Marketing/Branding, Business Process Reengineering, Economy/Stock Market, Contracts/Project Management, Finance & Banking, etc. He was employed to international bluechips involving in national/international megaprojects such as Balfour Beatty Construction/Knight Piesold & Partners UK, MMI Insurance Group Australia, Hazama Corporation (Hazamagumi) Japan (with Mitsubishi Corporation, JA Jones US, MMCE and Ho-Hup) and Sunway Construction Berhad (The Sunway Group of Companies). Among major projects undertaken : Pergau Hydro Electric Project, KLCC Petronas Twin Towers, LRT Tunnelling, KLIA, Petronas Refineries Melaka, Putrajaya Government Complex, Sistem Lingkaran Lebuhraya Kajang (SILK), Mex Highway, KLIA1, KLIA2 etc. Once serviced SMPD Management Consultants as Associate Consultant cum Lecturer for Diploma in Management, Institute of Supervisory Management UK/SMPD JV. Currently – Associate/Visiting Consultants/Facilitators, Advisors for leading consulting firms (local and international) including project management. To name a few – Noma SWO Consult, Amiosh Resources, Timur West Consultant Sdn. Bhd., TIJ Consultants Group (Malaysia and Singapore) and many others.

* Ex-Resident Weekly Columnist of Utusan Malaysia (1995-1998) and have produced more than 100 articles related to ISO-9000– Management System and Documentation Models, TQM Strategic Management, Occupational Safety and Health (now OHSAS 18000) and Environmental Management Systems ISO 14000. His write-ups/experience has assisted many students/researchers alike in module developments based on competency or academics and completion of many theses. Once commended by the then Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia for his diligence in promoting and training the civil services (government sector) based on “Total Quality Management and Quality Management System ISO-9000 in Malaysian Civil Service – Paradigm Shift Scalar for Assessment System”

Among Nik Zafri’s clients : Adabi Consumer Industries Sdn. Bhd, (MRP II, Accounts/Credit Control) The HQ of Royal Customs and Excise Malaysia (ISO 9000), Veterinary Services Dept. Negeri Sembilan (ISO 9000), The Institution of Engineers Malaysia (Aspects of Project Management – KLCC construction), Corporate HQ of RHB (Peter Drucker's MBO/KRA), NEC Semiconductor - Klang Selangor (Productivity Management), Prime Minister’s Department Malaysia (ISO 9000), State Secretarial Office Negeri Sembilan (ISO 9000), Hidrological Department KL (ISO 9000), Asahi Kluang Johor(System Audit, Management/Supervisory Development), Tunku Mahmood (2) Primary School Kluang Johor (ISO 9000), Consortium PANZANA (HSSE 3rd Party Audit), Lecturer for Information Technology Training Centre (ITTC) – Authorised Training Center (ATC) – University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) Kluang Branch Johor, Kluang General Hospital Johor (Management/Supervision Development, Office Technology/Administration, ISO 9000 & Construction Management), Kahang Timur Secondary School Johor (ISO 9000), Sultan Abdul Jalil Secondary School Kluang Johor (Islamic Motivation and Team Building), Guocera Tiles Industries Kluang Johor (EMS ISO 14000), MNE Construction (M) Sdn. Bhd. Kota Tinggi Johor (ISO 9000 – Construction), UITM Shah Alam Selangor (Knowledge Management/Knowledge Based Economy /TQM), Telesystem Electronics/Digico Cable(ODM/OEM for Astro – ISO 9000), Sungai Long Industries Sdn. Bhd. (Bina Puri Group) - ISO 9000 Construction), Secura Security Printing Sdn. Bhd,(ISO 9000 – Security Printing) ROTOL AMS Bumi Sdn. Bhd & ROTOL Architectural Services Sdn. Bhd. (ROTOL Group) – ISO 9000 –Architecture, Bond M & E (KL) Sdn. Bhd. (ISO 9000 – Construction/M & E), Skyline Telco (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Knowledge Management),Technochase Sdn. Bhd JB (ISO 9000 – Construction), Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM – ISO 9000 & Internal Audit Refresher), Shinryo/Steamline Consortium (Petronas/OGP Power Co-Generation Plant Melaka – Construction Management and Safety, Health, Environment), Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (Negotiation Skills), Association for Retired Intelligence Operatives of Malaysia (Cyber Security – Arpa/NSFUsenet, Cobit, Till, ISO/IEC ISMS 27000 for Law/Enforcement/Military), T.Yamaichi Corp. (M) Sdn. Bhd. (EMS ISO 14000) LSB Manufacturing Solutions Sdn. Bhd., (Lean Scoreboard (including a full development of System-Software-Application - MSC Malaysia & Six Sigma) PJZ Marine Services Sdn. Bhd., (Safety Management Systems and Internal Audit based on International Marine Organization Standards) UNITAR/UNTEC (Degree in Accountacy – Career Path/Roadmap) Cobrain Holdings Sdn. Bhd.(Managing Construction Safety & Health), Speaker for International Finance & Management Strategy (Closed Conference), Pembinaan Jaya Zira Sdn. Bhd. (ISO 9001:2008-Internal Audit for Construction Industry & Overview of version 2015), Straits Consulting Engineers Sdn. Bhd. (Full Integrated Management System – ISO 9000, OHSAS 18000 (ISO 45000) and EMS ISO 14000 for Civil/Structural/Geotechnical Consulting), Malaysia Management & Science University (MSU – (Managing Business in an Organization), Innoseven Sdn. Bhd. (KVMRT Line 1 MSPR8 – Awareness and Internal Audit (Construction), ISO 9001:2008 and 2015 overview for the Construction Industry), Kemakmuran Sdn. Bhd. (KVMRT Line 1 - Signages/Wayfinding - Project Quality Plan and Construction Method Statement ), Lembaga Tabung Haji - Flood ERP, WNA Consultants - DID/JPS -Flood Risk Assessment and Management Plan - Prelim, Conceptual Design, Interim and Final Report etc., Tunnel Fire Safety - Fire Risk Assessment Report - Design Fire Scenario), Safety, Health and Environmental Management Plans leading construction/property companies/corporations in Malaysia, Timur West Consultant : Business Methodology and System, Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) ISO/IEC 27001:2013 for Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya ISMS/Audit/Risk/ITP Technical Team, MPDT Capital Berhad - ISO 9001: 2015 - Consultancy, Construction, Project Rehabilitation, Desalination (first one in Malaysia to receive certification on trades such as Reverse Osmosis Seawater Desalination and Project Recovery/Rehabilitation)

* Has appeared for 10 consecutive series in “Good Morning Malaysia RTM TV1’ Corporate Talk Segment discussing on ISO 9000/14000 in various industries. For ICT, his inputs garnered from his expertise have successfully led to development of work-process e-enabling systems in the environments of intranet, portal and interactive web design especially for the construction and manufacturing. Some of the end products have won various competitions of innovativeness, quality, continual-improvements and construction industry award at national level. He has also in advisory capacity – involved in development and moderation of websites, portals and e-profiles for mainly corporate and private sectors, public figures etc. He is also one of the recipients for MOSTE Innovation for RFID use in Electronic Toll Collection in Malaysia.

Note :


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Showing posts with label LEHMAN BROTHERS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LEHMAN BROTHERS. Show all posts

Thursday, July 07, 2011

DERIVATIVES CLEARINGHOUSES

This note is not representing the official views and regulations set by by the authorities related to the bourse or the like. It serves merely as a personal research and quick guide. The interested parties are advised to contact Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Clearing

May 25, 2011
by : Dr. Ben Steil

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you this morning my views on the important subject of derivatives clearing.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG in September of 2008 highlighted the importance of regulatory reforms that go beyond trying to prevent individual financial institutions from failing. We need reforms that act to make our markets more resilient in the face of such failures – what engineers and risk managers call “safe-fail” approaches to risk management. Well capitalized and regulated central derivatives clearinghouses to track exposures, to net trades and to novate them, to collect proper margin on a timely basis, and to absorb default risk have historically provided the best example of successful “safe-fail” risk management in the derivatives industry.

Compare the collapse of the large hedge fund Amaranth in 2006 with the collapse of AIG in 2008. Both were laid low by derivatives exposures. Yet whereas the failure of Amaranth caused barely a ripple in the markets, owing to its exposures having been in centrally cleared exchange-traded natural gas futures contracts, the failure of AIG precipitated justifiable concerns of widespread market contagion that ultimately required a massive and enormously controversial government intervention and bailout to contain. Had AIG been building derivatives exposures on-exchange rather than in the OTC markets, its reckless speculation would have been brought to a halt much earlier owing to minute-by-minute exposure-tracking in the clearinghouse and unambiguous mark-to-market and margining rules. The long, drawn-out wrangling between AIG and Goldman Sachs over the collateral required to cover AIG’s deteriorating derivatives positions would never have been possible had a clearinghouse stood between the two.

Furthermore, AIG’s net exposures in the marketplace would not have been the subject of rumor or surmise, but a simple matter of record at the clearinghouse.

Encouraging a shift in derivatives trading from OTC markets without central clearing to organized, government-regulated markets with central clearing is challenging, however, for two major reasons.

First, the dealers that dominate the OTC derivatives business have no incentive to accommodate such a shift. Dealers earn approximately $55 billion in annual revenues from OTC derivatives trading. Some of the largest earn up to 16% of their revenues from such trading. The movement of such trading onto exchanges and central clearinghouses has the potential to widen market participation significantly, to increase the transparency of prices, to reduce trading costs through the netting of transactions, and in consequence to reduce the trading profits of the largest dealers materially. It is natural, therefore, that dealers should resist a movement in trading activity onto exchanges and clearinghouses. Where compelled by regulation to accommodate it, dealers can also be expected to take measures to control the structure of, and limit direct access to, the clearing operations. The use of measures such as unnecessarily high capital requirements in order to keep smaller competitors or buy-side institutions from participating directly as clearinghouse members are to be expected.

Indeed, trading infrastructure providers organized as exclusive mutual societies of major banks or dealers have a long history of restricting market access. For example, in the foreign exchange markets, the bank-controlled CLS settlement system has long resisted initiatives by exchanges and other trading service providers to pre-net trades through a third-party clearing system prior to settlement. Such netting would significantly reduce FX trading costs for many market participants, but would also reduce the settlement revenues generated by CLS and reduce the trade intermediation profits of the largest FX dealing banks. Other settlement service providers such as DTCC have no incentive to offer competition to CLS, as they are owned by the very same banks. There are therefore solid grounds for regulators to apply basic antitrust principles to the clearing and settlement businesses in order to ensure that market access is not being unduly restricted by membership or ownership limitations that cannot be justified on safety and soundness grounds.

Second, some types of derivatives contracts do not lend themselves to centralized clearing as well as others. Customized contracts, or contracts which are functionally equivalent to insurance contracts on rare events, are examples. Since it can be difficult for policymakers or regulators to determine definitively whether given contracts - new types of which are being created all the time - are well suited for central clearing, it is appropriate to put in place certain basic trading regulations in the OTC markets that will serve both to make such trading less likely to produce another AIG disaster and to encourage the movement of trading in suitable products onto central clearinghouses. Two such measures would be to apply higher regulatory capital requirements for non-cleared trades, in consequence of the higher counterparty risk implied by such trades, and to mandate trade registration and collateral management by a regulated third party, such as an exchange.

In establishing the regulatory standards for the clearing of derivatives transactions, it is imperative for lawmakers and regulators to be fully conscious of the fact that the derivatives market is effectively international, rather than national, and that it is exceptionally easy for market participants to change the legal domicile of their trading activities with a keystroke or a simple change of trading algorithm. In this regard, I would highlight two important areas of concern.

First, the three major world authorities controlling the structure of the derivatives clearing business – the SEC, the CFTC, and the European Commission – each take a very different view of the matter. Historically, the SEC has applied what I would term the “utility” model to the industry, the CFTC has applied what I would term the “silo” model, and the European Commission has applied what I would term the “spaghetti” model. The broad benefits of each are depicted in the matrix below.



The SEC’s utility model favors institutions operated outside the individual exchanges; in particular the DTCC in the equity markets and the OCC in the options markets. This approach has generally performed well in terms of safety and soundness, and in encouraging competition among exchanges. It performs poorly, however, in terms of encouraging innovation in clearing and settlement services.

The CFTC’s silo model allows the individual exchanges to control their own clearinghouses. This approach has also performed well in terms of safety and soundness. The recent decision of the CME to raise margin requirements on silver trading is evidence of the model working well, in terms of the exchange placing a premium on the integrity and solvency of its clearing operations rather than trying to maximize short-term speculative trading volumes. The CFTC’s model also encourages innovation in product development in a way in which the SEC’s model does not. This is because CFTC-regulated futures exchanges can capture the benefits of product innovation in terms of generating trading volumes, whereas SEC-regulated options exchanges risk seeing trading volumes in new products migrate to other exchanges, all of which use clearing services provided by the OCC. The CFTC model, in consequence, does not promote competition from new trading venues in the same way that the SEC model does. It does, however, promote wider direct market participation in clearing systems, as demutualized exchanges have a commercial interest in expanding such access to buy-side institutions that dealers normally want to exclude. This reduces trading costs and expands market liquidity.

The European Commission’s spaghetti model, enshrined in its so-called “Code of Conduct” for the industry, compels the EU’s clearinghouses to interoperate with each other. It also encourages both exchanges and clearinghouses to compete against each other. Like the SEC’s model, however, it can be expected to dampen incentives for product innovation, as clearing competition makes it more difficult for exchanges that own clearinghouses to maximize their trading and clearing revenue returns on new product development. More importantly, this model, I believe, is not conducive to ensuring safety and soundness, as it encourages clearinghouses to cut margin requirements and other prudential measures as a way to attract business from, or prevent business from moving to, other clearinghouses. It also injects a major element of operational risk into the business, in consequence of each clearinghouse being vulnerable to failures of technology or risk management in others.

On balance, I believe that the CFTC’s model is the most appropriate for the derivatives industry, and I believe that the unworkability of the European Commission’s spaghetti approach will ultimately oblige it to move back in the CFTC’s direction. Although the CFTC’s approach does not promote inter-exchange competition as directly as the SEC’s model, it is important to note that new competitors are, in fact, entering into the futures business. ELX, founded in 2009, and NYPC , a recent joint venture between the NYSE and the DTCC which facilitates cross-margining of multiple products, are now competing with the CME in the financial futures space.

The second point I would like to make regarding the global nature of the derivatives trading industry is that certain measures to curb speculative activity being debated here in Washington are highly likely to push trading activity “off exchange” – precisely the opposite of Congress’s intent. For example, a so-called Tobin Tax on futures transactions at the level being discussed last year, 2 basis points (0.02%), would be equivalent to over 400 times the CME transaction fee on Eurodollar futures. It should go without saying that a tax this large, relative to the current transaction fee on the underlying contract, would push all of this trading off the CME and into alternative jurisdictions.

Likewise, commodity market position limits, if not harmonized with UK and other national authorities, will merely push such trading outside the CFTC’s jurisdiction. There is already an active regulatory arbitrage on oil and natural gas futures between the CME’s Nymex exchange, which trades such contracts under CFTC regulation, and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which trades such contracts under FSA regulation in London. We have seen indications of movement in trading from Nymex to ICE in line with market perceptions of the likelihood of such limits being imposed in the United States. In short, we must be extraordinarily cautious not to undermine Congress’s worthy goal of bringing more derivatives trading under the purview of US-regulated exchanges and clearinghouses by inadvertently providing major market participants incentives to do precisely the opposite.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my views today on this important issue.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Reasons for Economical Disturbances :

a. Crude oil price volatility

b. Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis

c. The Fall of Share Market

d. The Fall of global corporate guns/bluechips

e. Anything else?

Chain-Reaction

a. USD exchange badly affected,
b. Price of Food going up?
c. Refinancing and repackaging of assets/properties, loans even credit cards to a longer repayment but with higher interest?
d. Heavy Hedging and Sell-Offs
e. Bad Fall in Motor & Transportation Industries – closed down – Lehman Brothers, GM etc.

MORE HERE :



Thursday, October 09, 2008

Financial Times

Some of the fault lies closer to home - By John Gapper
Published: October 8 2008 19:06 Last updated: October 8 2008 22:37

"Small island, big problem” was the headline in some editions of the Financial Times on Wednesday. It referred to Iceland, which has almost gone bust and had to seek a €4bn loan from Russia. But it could have been about the UK, which has pumped £50bn of equity into its biggest banks.

The previous moment of maximum danger for British banks in my lifetime came in 1973 when, during the secondary banking crisis, National Westminster Bank needed to assure investors that it was solvent. Words would not do this week: public money was required to prop up NatWest’s parent bank RBS.

When in trouble, humans tend to blame others and many British people have blamed Americans for the subprime mortgage mess, which started the global financial crisis. If only the Wall Street banks had not cooked up loans for people who could not afford to repay them, things would have been all right.

The British, Irish, Spanish and others could have carried on enjoying sharply rising property prices and cheap mortgages. European governments would not have spent the week gazumping each other with ever higher guarantees of assistance to their own country's banks.

Americans, meanwhile, are taking it out on Wall Street financiers. Dick Fuld, chairman of Lehman Brothers, and Martin Sullivan, former chief executive of American International Group, were hauled in front of a congressional committee to account for their blunders.

Both were excoriated by politicians for the millions they received in the good times. They looked, as Samuel Pepys wrote in October 1660 of a Puritan soldier who was hanged, drawn and quartered, “as cheerful as any man could do in that condition”.

There is no question that professionals of many nationalities – bankers, financiers, estate agents and regulators – behaved badly. They got paid a lot of money and wilfully loosened credit restrictions to keep house prices rising and bonuses flowing. Many of them, although far from all, were American.

But I would like to propose another culprit for the difficulty that many economies are in: you and I. We home buyers and mortgage borrowers share the blame, whether we are American, British or Icelandic.

Take nationality first. A year ago, when the US subprime mortgage debacle was evident but the British housing market was still doing well, I took a trip to London from my home in New York. On a visit to friends in west London, I was struck by the number of houses in their street with “To Let” boards outside.

At the time, there was a lot of talk about how the UK housing market differed from that of the US because it was a small island with a limited housing stock, there was no equivalent of subprime lending and so on. But those “To Let” boards said something different to me.

They showed that cheap debt and rising asset prices had led to housing speculation all over the world; it just took different forms. In wide, flat Florida it created sprawls of condominium apartments; in densely packed UK cities it generated a rush into buy-to-let properties. For subprime mortgages in the US, read “self-certified” UK loans.

The US housing market had unique flaws: the outsized role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the home loan agencies; low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve after September 11, 2001; high fees that gave estate agents and loan appraisers incentives to pump out mortgages.

But the housing bubble was global. It was financed by securities that were constructed and sold as much in London as New York and people from many nations borrowed to buy homes. Wednesday’s co-ordinated interest rate cuts, and part-nationalisation of UK banks, illustrate that.

Then there is our tendency to blame everything on bankers and other financial professionals. Here too, we are kidding ourselves. Bankers did many foolish – and, in some cases, unethical – things during the boom. But they did not force people to buy houses or take out mortgages; they mostly provided enough rope for borrowers to hang themselves.

In the past, people used to rely on bankers to guard themselves from their own worst financial instincts. They might have wanted to borrow 100 per cent (or 125 per cent) of the value of a home without the need to demonstrate thrift and reliability by making a down-payment. But they were shown the door.

Without bankers saying “no”, many people borrowed to the hilt, assuming that rising asset prices had eliminated all risk. Some confined themselves to buying bigger houses for themselves, while others bought second and third homes to rent them out while their capital appreciated.

We know why this occurred because we all lived through it, and financial bubbles are peculiarly intoxicating. When you are surrounded by people constantly talking about how much money they have made (on paper) by buying a house, you end up wanting to get a piece of the action and fearing being left behind.

It was the madness of crowds and, unlike some bouts, it crossed borders. Even countries with comparatively low rates of home ownership, such as Germany and Belgium, were caught up in the speculative rush.

Human nature is not going to change so public policy cannot focus – beyond the need for more financial education – on eliminating our urge to get rich quick. It is more practical to sharpen up regulation and reduce the incentives for bankers to finance our foolishness in future.

But, if for no other reason than to increase our chances of doing better next time, we must beware of blaming bankers and foreigners for everything. The fault lies closer to home.