01/08/18

Singapore’s financial sector to undergo IMF’s comprehensive assessment for 3rd time

(The Business Times) – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on Wednesday that the Republic will undergo the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) this year, its third such test.

The FSAP will assess the resilience of Singapore’s financial sector, the quality of MAS’s regulatory framework and supervision, and the capacity of the authorities to manage and resolve financial crises. This will be Singapore’s third FSAPassessment, following the last one done in 2013.

The MAS said that Singapore, along with 28 other jurisdictions, is judged by the IMF to be a systemically important financial centre given its size and global connectedness. Such systemically important financial centres are required to undertake a financial stability assessment every five years.

The FSAP will include a stress test of the financial system under hypothetical macroeconomic scenarios; MAS’s regulatory and supervisory approaches covering fintech and cybersecurity, as well as MAS Electronic Payments System (MEPS+), which is a local electronic interbank payment and settlement system; Singapore’s macroprudential policy framework to mitigate systemic financial risk; and MAS’s regime for managing crises and resolving banks in an orderly manner.

Prosecutors' opening statement…