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Monetary Authority of Singapore
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has imposed an additional capital requirement of approximately S$330 million ($240.1 million), on OCBC Bank, in consideration of the deficiencies in the bank’s response to a wave of spoofed SMS phishing scams in December 2021. 

OCBC is required to apply a multiplier of 1.3 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk, the Singapore regulator said in a statement yesterday. This translates to an additional amount of approximately S$330 million in regulatory capital (based on reported financial statements as at 31 March 2022). 

Following the scams, OCBC engaged an independent firm to review its systems and processes. Deficiencies were noted in the bank’s mitigation of identified risks, pre- and post-transaction controls, incident management and complaints handling, resulting in delays in containment measures and customer response time, MAS said. 

The deficiencies identified are in line with MAS’ assessment and the bank is in the process of addressing them, the regulator added.

MAS said that the additional capital requirement imposed takes into consideration actions taken by OCBC to strengthen its controls and its approach to resolving customer complaints following the incident. The additional capital requirement will be reviewed when MAS is satisfied that OCBC has addressed all the deficiencies identified in the review.