Protect

You may argue the procedure of risk assessment may be considered cumbersome, but that's necessary for the protection of small investors.

On that, I beg to disagree.

The complicated procedure is meant for the protection of the bank or stock broker, not small investors. After all, who do you think has a better comprehension of that thickness of document? (The same argument also hold for a complicated consent procedure, or the time-out policy that our friends from extra-terrestrials are recently so fond of.)

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On a second thought, I begin to suspect the entire business does not protect the bank very much better either.

The problem goes like this: In the middle of this risk assessment exercise, I was asked how long an experience I had been involved in a list of investment products (e.g. fix deposit, stock, ELI, warrant, and so forth). Since I never touched any ELI, I chose none for that item.

A moment later, another question asked what investment products I was holding at the moment. The list was, in fact, the same as the previous question mentioned above. However, I had not took my morning coffee at that time and was in a confusion state - I said that I was holding some ELI.

Alas, that was, of course, self-contradicting and logically impossible. Nonetheless, the serious-looking woman did not notice it when she checked my answers, and neither of us noted that when we went through the answer again the third time.

I am sure if anything disastrous happens, I could still sue the bank and declare that I was in an abnormal mental state when doing the risk assessment.