cybersecurity

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The guidelines aim to promote the adoption of robust practices for managing technology risks in the financial sector.

By Farhana Sharmeen and Marc Jia Renn Tan

On 18 January 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (the MAS) issued revised guidelines (the Guidelines) to take into account the fast-changing cyber threat landscape and financial institutions’ increased reliance on cloud technologies, application programming interfaces (APIs), and rapid software development. The Guidelines apply to all banks, payment services firms, and brokerage and insurance firms.

The Guidelines, which became effective immediately on the date of issue, aim to support financial institutions by providing them a framework of best practices for overseeing technology risk governance, practices, and controls to address technology and cyber risks. The Guidelines are not meant to be exhaustive or prescriptive, and have incorporated feedback received from the public consultation conducted in 2019.

By Andrew C. Moyle, Grace Erskine, and Charlotte Collins

As leading global financial and FinTech centres, the UK and Singapore will benefit from strengthening their cybersecurity alliance.

On 13 June 2019, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that they will be working together to strengthen cybersecurity in their countries’ financial sectors.

The regulators have characterised the aims of this new collaboration as “identifying effective ways to share information and exploring potential for staff exchanges”.

All three regulators have identified cybercrime as an increasing global problem. Speaking about the new initiative, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, said, “The average cost of cybercrime for financial services companies globally has increased by more than 40% over the past three years. Cyber risk is not constrained by geographic boundaries, making international cooperation essential to address this growing threat”.