Singapore Regulator Grows More Teeth In Fight Against Dirty Money

Tom Burroughes

14 June 2016

Singapore’s financial regulator is creating a standalone unit to fight money laundering, just a few weeks after the watchdog moved to revoke the merchant banking licence of BSI Bank in the Asian jurisdiction, the first time it has taken such action since 1984.

The , the Malaysian state-run fund accused of allowing politicians and other figures to siphon off money (1MDB denies wrongdoing). Investigations have been launched in Singapore and Switzerland over money transfers. The MAS action was the first time MAS has withdrawn such a licence since 1984, when Jardine Fleming (Singapore) was shut down for serious lapses in its advisory work. (For more on the matter, see here.)

Offshore jurisdictions such as Singapore, home to an estimated global total of around $10 trillion (source: Boston Consulting Group), remain under pressure to show they do not provide hiding places for dirty money. The financial and political world is still digesting the “leak” of account details from a Panama-based law firm earlier this year, while jurisdictions are also readying for global standards of disclosure and data transfer, such as under the Common Reporting Standard.

Supervisory team
In its statement yesterday, MAS said that as well as forming a dedicated AML unit, a supervisory team will be set up to monitor these risks and carry out onsite supervision of how financial institutions manage those risks.

Justifying its action, MAS said that with a sector that comprises more than 1,500 financial institutions of varying sizes and systemic importance, it cannot stop all rule-breakers with even the toughest supervision, so it was necessary to strengthen enforcement of the laws.