Citi

This morning, I was sitting in a coffee shop drinking lovely local coffee looking out at Citi 's large Malaysian head office in KualaLumpur . Then I looked at the news.

Citi is to leave Malaysia but maintain its offices in Singapore.

ASIC says that fixed coupon structured products are "complex, capital-at-risk products tied to the performance of reference shares," a definition that proves its point. Citigroup's advisers gave general advice, the company said. ASIC said retail customers "may have [been] led .. to believe that Citigroup was providing personal advice."

There is something off here: you can use your credit card to buy pornography of the most awful and depraved kinds ,you can use your credit card to place illegal wagers or take part in illegal gambling, you can use your credit card to buy drugs, legal and illegal from illegal or at least dubious sources or to put money at risk in pump and dump schemes and the banks and credit card companies are adamant that they cannot identify and prevent such transactions. And yet, when their own business models are under threat, suddenly they are able to identify and prevent the purchase of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple plus many, many more.