Singapore must be willing to take some risks to capture wealth management opportunities: Chee Hong Tat

Singapore must be willing to take some risks to capture new wealth management opportunities, but still maintain high standards of a stable, trusted environment, said Chee Hong Tat, minister for national development and deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

“We take a risk proportionate approach, and not a zero risk approach, because if we are overly kiasu, I think we will not be able to capture new opportunities,” Chee said on Wednesday (Jul 9).

Chee was speaking to the media on the sidelines of his visit to DBS, which comes less than a week after MAS on Jul 4 penalised nine financial institutions (FIs) for anti-money laundering related breaches in connection to the S$3 billion money-laundering case from August 2023.

Credit Suisse, UOB, UBS, Citi and Julius Baer were among the FIs that were penalised a total of S$27.5 million.

Addressing questions on why it was mostly international financial institutions that received penalties over anti-money laundering breaches, Chee said MAS will assess “fairly and objectively” the severity of the different offences when it comes to regulatory cases.

“It’s not whether it is a local or international financial institution, but it is about the nature, extent and severity of the lapses and offences that have been committed,” the minister said.

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“The key is we want to maintain high standards,” he said. “We want to keep Singapore as a trusted financial centre; at the same time, we want to make sure that we provide good service, convenience and efficiency,” he added.

Chee also fielded questions on Singapore’s proposition in an increasingly competitive wealth management space.

“Singapore remains open as a gateway to Asia, and we will be a place where we hope investors will see value in making long term plans, because we offer a stable, trusted environment,” he said.

Chee noted that it is not “mutually exclusive” to want to maintain high standards and make it convenient and business friendly for clients.

For example, MAS has workedwith industry players to reduce the time taken for family offices to apply for tax incentives to three months, from 12 months. It has also worked to reduce the time taken for private banking clients to set up accounts.

Chee also noted that there is enough growth in the global wealth management sector for there to be a few wealth management hubs.

Each hub will have to play to their own strengths, with Singapore boasting a safe haven proposition to attract wealth from around the world, he said.