Question

_{The following is adapted for academic purposes from the original speech: “Staying on Top of Our Game” by Singapore Minister Mr Ong Ye Kung during the launch of the Financial Services Industry Transformation Map on 30th Oct 2017.
“The regulator facilitates the development of infrastructure upon which new services and ideas can thrive. A good example is the payments infrastructure. Three years ago, MAS worked with the banking industry to launch FAST, to conduct direct real-time transfers between bank accounts. This year, the banks launched PayNow, which links bank accounts to NRIC or mobile numbers, making transfers more convenient. More importantly, PayNow will activate the full potential of FAST. It currently works only for P2P, but will be progressively expanded for P2B and B2B next year. To further facilitate this, we will introduce by the end of the year a common QR code that can accept all payments using QR readers…..”}

Question 1:
To regulate the payment systems in Singapore, MAS requires financial institutions to comply with the relevant licensing and ongoing licensing requirement to control and minimise certain regulatory risks. Appraise one (1) of these risks that you think MAS would be most concerned with?

Answer 1

Answer:The relevant act is the Payment Services Act, by the purpose of the promotion of choosing electronic payment services. The aforementioned act gives the Monetary Authority of Singapore with the influence of ordinance and through decreasing the risk correlated with the various activities. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is broadly enabled with all powers by the Monetary Authority of Singapore Act.

The regulative actions are made by the Monetary Authority of Singapore by some instruments.

• Several Acts concerning economic services.
• Subsidiary Enactment supporting various acts.
• Issuance of instructions.
• Code of conduct for distinct actions.
• Issuance of notes in the form of a guide.
• Issuance of several announcements.
• Issuance of a policy report from period to period.

There are primarily three kinds of licenses in these circumstances:

• Money Changing License-It can do only money switching services.
• Standard Payment Institution License-It can make any mixture of all the defined payment services although under a threshold limit.
• Major Payment Institution License: It can give any form of all the specified services with no particular limit. However, there is more rigorous supervision.