Investors in structured products linked to bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers speak up, most saying they never intended to sign up for these risky products such as Minibonds, Pinnacle Note 7 and High Notes 5

I THOUGHT MY PRINCIPAL WOULD BE PROTECTED

'The relationship manager told me that my investment in High Notes 5 was guaranteed 100 per cent for five years. And from my understanding, that meant that if I remained invested for the entire five years, my principal would still exist.'

A 68-year-old retiree who wanted to be known only as Mr Ang. He invested $600,000 of his life savings into High Notes 5 which he thought was similar to a conventional fixed deposit account.

WE'LL WAIT BUT KEEP US UPDATED

'What the relationship manager said was: 'Don't worry, this is very safe, even if one entity (out of a basket of eight reference entities) fails, you still have seven.'

'I don't think we are unreasonable. We will give them time to conduct the valuation. But (DBS) also has to be reasonable with us and be more proactive in keeping us updated. Perhaps organising a conference to give investors more information on what they are going to do about it, if they actually value us as customers.'

Mrs Amy Loh, in her 40s, who was approached by a DBS relationship manager at a branch when all she wanted was to start a fixed deposit account. She invested $25,000.

SHOCKED BY DROP IN VALUE TO JUST 10%

'I invested several hundred thousand dollars in Pinnacle Note 7 slightly more than a year ago, via UOB Bank, and was shocked to be informed by my relationship manager one late afternoon...that this structured product was badly affected and currently valued at less than 10 per cent. He could not give me more details, not even the causes for the collapse.'

Mr Steven Ho, 63, a retiree, via e-mail to The Straits Times.