Deliver the right message at the right time. 18. Third, we will provide more avenues for people who are in difficulty or financial distress, to seek help. We must do everything we can to prevent people from getting into a worse situation, or getting into a debt spiral. CCS, with the help of ABS, runs a very useful debt management programme for those who cannot re-pay their borrowings from banks. We can do more, using our social workers and counsellors. 19. MoneySENSE, through the new institute that I talked about, the Institute of Financial Literacy, is now conducting a pilot training programme to help social workers and counsellors, to equip them with financial literacy knowledge so they can provide advice to low income households, or those who come and see them for help. It may have to do with cutting down on utility bills, or it may be about spending wisely in weekly marketing, without compromising on health and wellbeing. 20. MoneySENSE will continue working with the social service sector with the objective of training social workers and counsellors, so they can expand our outreach to Singaporeans. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Conclusion 21. This is what we plan to do for the future. I think we have done good work for the first ten years, but there is a lot more work ahead to help Singaporeans.
23 Individual investors building their own investment portfolios should take special care to diversify and avoid concentrated exposure to any one investment or issuer. One way for individual investors to gain exposure to a diversified portfolio of bonds in a cost-efficient manner is to invest through bond funds. MAS has for many years promoted the development of index bond funds in the regional markets, through the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) initiative led by the EMEAP Group. Today, there are many such offerings, some of which can be bought and sold through the exchange as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We encourage fund managers to increase the number and variety of bond funds and ETFs available to individual investors. Supporting secondary market liquidity 24 Let me now turn from our efforts in the primary market to secondary market liquidity. Market participants generally agree that bond market liquidity has become more challenging. This is the case globally but also in Singapore. Banks continue to provide prices for a majority of bonds issued here, although the amounts they are willing to transact in, may be smaller for weaker credits and smaller issuances. 25 A functioning secondary market is critical for the sustainable growth of the bond market. To deepen the secondary market, MAS has been working with the industry on several initiatives over the years. For example, to improve price transparency, we collaborated with banks and service providers, such as Bloomberg and Markit, to make available end-of-day corporate bond prices on 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  their platforms.