The Monetary Authority of Singapore published its inaugural Enforcement Report on March 20, giving an overview of prior enforcement efforts in the financial markets during the period of July 2017 to December 2018. The report further outlines MAS’s strategic priorities.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has consistently taken a firm stance on financial regulatory enforcement. There are three principles underpinning its enforcement philosophy: early detection, effective deterrence, and the shaping of business and market conduct.

Enforcement Approach

From July 2017 to December 2018, the MAS targeted enforcement in three main areas:

• Market abuse: Conduct that disrupts genuine price discovery and undermines market integrity. Insider/false trading and fraud-related activities fall in this category.
• Financial services misconduct: Misconduct by MAS-licensed entities and representatives relating to breaches of business conduct rules when performing financial services activities or the giving of improper advice relating to financial products.
• Anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) related breaches.

Because of these efforts, the MAS has taken the following actions (among others):

• Imposed a total of S$16.8 million in financial penalties and composition on 42 financial institutions
• Issued 223 warnings and 444 supervisory reminders to individuals and financial institutions (among others)
• Reprimanded five individuals and 27 financial institutions
• Issued 19 prohibition orders against ”unfit” individuals from working in the financial industry

MAS’s review and investigations are completed fairly quickly, generally within eight months,  compared to the 19.1 months the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority generally takes.

Priorities in 2019–2020

The report details that MAS’s enforcement priorities for 2019–2020 are to ensure the following:

• Timely and adequate disclosure of corporate information by SGX-listed companies to enhance investor protection
• Proper business conduct of financial advisers and their representatives
• Financial institutions’ compliance with AML/CFT requirements
• Brokerage houses maintain internal controls to detect and deter market abuse
• Adequate surveillance and investigations into suspected insider trading activities

Observations

The report provides greater transparency into MAS’s role in policing errant behavior in Singapore’s financial markets. In particular, providing real-life case examples and penalties meted out gives useful insight into what MAS views as unlawful behavior and the corresponding severity with which it views such misconduct. Outlining MAS’s future enforcement priorities sends a clear message to companies and individuals alike that MAS’s focus on compliance in these areas will be backed up by enforcement action where necessary.

The report was published after a February 2019 speech by an executive director of MAS in the context of fund management highlighted a similar focus on enforcement. The speech recognized that Singapore’s growth as a key asset management hub was in no small part attributable to Singapore’s robust regulatory and supervisory regime. One of MAS’s strategies has been to structure the teams of its compliance officers such that funds with similar focuses or strategies are being supervised by the same group of officers—this allowed MAS to better keep up with trends and developments affecting similar clusters of fund managers.

The report reveals two other noteworthy features of MAS’s enforcement policy.

First, the MAS is leveraging technological advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence to identify unusual trends. The report identified “Project Apollo” as an augmented intelligence tool that automates computation of key metrics used for trade analysis to identify market manipulation, boasting a system accuracy rate of 98%. The MAS has already been applying data analytics to identify unusual trends and flag outliers in the asset management space, and we expect the future use of text analytics on financial statements and audit reports of fund managers to come into play.

Second, as a board member of the International Organisation of Securities Commission (IOSCO) and a signatory to IOSCO’s Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMOU) and Enhanced MMOU, the MAS is able to request assistance from regulators worldwide to enforce Singapore’s securities and derivatives law. Such assistance can range from obtaining records to freezing assets.

MAS has consistently displayed innovation in discharging its role as Singapore’s principal markets regulator. We can expect a similar level of robustness in the enforcement standards in the next report, which will be published every 18 months.