If there is one word to describe the way people live, work and play these days it's multitasking. Just look into the car next to you next time you stop at traffic lights. Chances are someone in it is busy thumbing out an SMS on their handphone in the thirty seconds before the lights turn green. On the MRT the walkman has made way for the iPod or MP3-ready mobile phone. At cafés, people wait for their friends by catching up on missed calls. The marketing hype of the telcos is hitting on a peculiarity of our times: we maximise each precious minute to do things in parallel that we used to do in serial fashion before. While we are maximising our time, we also have less of it. Fewer people have time to digest the large volumes of information offered by dozens of media sources. With video recorders giving people the power to choose when to watch a particular program, the inevitable next step is to allow people to choose where to watch. This is why the mobile phone is fast becoming the most important device for tech-savvy Singaporeans. Technological barriers have finally fallen one by one and people’s eternal wish to choose what to watch, when and where they want, and to actually contribute to what is being offered, can finally be granted. Our children will wonder how our generation ever coped without having absolute control over the information and entertainment programs they consume in the same way that we wonder what people did before television. We are on the cusp of another revolution in the media, yet few people realise it because it is such a natural step. It is punctuated by the official launch of StarHub’s i-mode service in Singapore next month. The mobile internet, launched in Japan in November 1999, will over time bring to your pocket what you currently enjoy at home or in the office. There is plenty of room for other delivery mechanisms, such as the streaming and download services offered by Singapore Telecom and MobileOne. But i-mode has the power to render even your laptop or desktop obsolete. Hong Bao Media is proud to be among the first 50 content providers on the StarHub i-mode platform. You will be able to access information you previously had to read in research documents or the newspaper via your mobile phone. Together with our content partners at SIAS Research Pte Ltd we will present StockTips, QuickBites of information, US market reports and, of course, The Insider audio interviews with corporate chiefs of Singapore companies. Think of it as the CEO of an SGX-listed firm calling you on your handphone to give you a quick, private briefing. Perfect for those three minutes between meetings.

Raising listing fees is a courageous move by the Singapore Exchange, at a time when it is trying to persuade overseas companies to list here. But whether this is the right way to increase cashflow and profitability depends on just one thing: value for money.

The underlying reason for raising fees is the SGX's own need to make more money. It is under pressure from analysts for having limited opportunities to grow revenue. Listing and clearing fees and data generated from the daily course of trading are among its main sources of income. Charging more might dampen volumes, but charging the same as, or even less than before, means it has to constantly focus on increasing volumes. Ideally, it would increase volumes and charge more money for services rendered. But how?

Stock exchanges by their nature have few options by which they can differentiate themselves. Companies want access to breadth and depth of capital. Investors expect a user-friendly, properly regulated and liquid market. Those are givens. The trick is to either offer all of these for less money than other exchanges, or to add more value than other exchanges. By charging higher fees – the SGX says without elaborating that these merely put them on par with the others – it is clearly shooting for the latter.

This is the correct strategy. Already, in its statement announcing what it many cases amounts to a doubling of fees (see table), the SGX points to several initiatives to add value, such as a securities trading module of a new S$20 million trading engine to be launched January 1, 2006, and the Research Incentive Scheme. More such initiatives will be required to assuage companies that the hike in fees is justified. It will be able to measure its success by the number of companies that will come from abroad to list here, the number of top investors who come to trade here, and the resulting greater revenues from higher prices and larger volumes.

It is a sign of the maturity of Singapore's financial markets that the Council on Corporate Disclosure and Governance (CCDG) is reviewing the rules prescribing quarterly reporting just three years since they were implemented. When rules and regulations are not working as they were intended, or could work better, it is much healthier for the market that these are reviewed openly than to insist companies comply to them. But when the CCDG deliberates over the merits of quarterly reporting it is critical it reviews all aspects to the debate, including the related issue of the time companies have to report their financial statements.

Overall, the review is all about improving communication of market sensitive information to investors. Since April 2003, companies with a market capitalisation of S$75 mln or more have had to release financial statements every quarter. This is up from the S$20 mln threshold, instituted only four months earlier. But several companies, most notably DBS Bank, say they have not seen a tangible return on the substantial costs and effort involved in communicating financial statements every quarter.

Part of the reason may be that analysts and journalists often must approach companies individually for additional comment and clarification, because the relevant announcements are released to the market without a briefing being held. This reduces the efficacy of quarterly reporting. The CCDG will inevitably have to take these various points into account.

But it should not forget another important issue: the deadline for reporting earnings. Companies currently have 45 days from the end of the relevant period to file their accounts. While speedier disclosure tightens discipline it also means there are a large number of fillings in a short period of time - too many for analysts and the media to digest properly during earnings season, followed by a long lull in newsflow. The communication with investors is at first drowned out, then sparse. Given that the whole issue of quarterly reporting revolves around communication with shareholders, it is an issue that also ought to get attention.