Florence Lam has no money tied up in Lehman Brothers investments, but she has lost plenty of sleep over the last two weeks as a result of the company's collapse.

The reason is that her 70-year-old mother wasn't so lucky with her investments, having spent HK$500,000 on products issued by the bank.

"That's her life savings," Lam said. "I am terribly shocked. No one dares to tell my mother about it, but we ought to tell her eventually.

"I feel terrible, even while eating and sleeping, with the news that the financial tsunami is spreading around the world. I am frightened, as it seems my mother cannot get the money back."

Her mother's chances of getting the money back are slim because she bought equity-linked notes, not bonds, which the government says investors may get back a portion of.

Lam's mother bought the notes in March through a local bank. She said she was told that the product was safe and offered a higher interest rate than fixed deposits.

"The bank staff just told my mother that the product would be safe unless the bank become bankrupt," Lam said.

"My mother invested in the product because we trusted the banks to give priority to customers' interests."

Lam said the bank indicated it would follow up on the incident, but Lam said she intended to file a complaint with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

"We didn't think that our money in the bank would be gone all of a sudden. The bank should not sell such high risk products to the elderly," she said. "I have lost all of my confidence in the banking system. I will only use the bank's current deposit service from now on."

(HK Edition 10/09/2008 page3)