The Financial Services Industry Transformation Map (ITM) 2025 was launched by Lawrence Wong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The ITM 2025 lays out the growth strategies for Singapore to become a premier international financial hub in Asia, connecting global markets, supporting Asia’s development, and serving the Singapore economy. Singapore aspires to be Asia’s philanthropic hub by developing impact monitoring tools, philanthropy advisory competencies, and novel philanthropy models.
MAS forecasts that the financial sector will increase by 4% to 5% per year between 2021 and 2025, creating 3,000 – 4,000 net jobs per year. It will collaborate with the financial industry to strengthen skills in asset classes where Singapore plays an important regional or global role.
The ITM includes five main strategies: strengthening asset classes, digitising financial infrastructure, catalysing Asia’s net-zero transition, shaping the future of financial networks, and cultivating a competent and adaptive workforce.
By anchoring new FX platforms and liquidity takers, MAS hopes to widen and deepen the electronic foreign exchange (FX) trading ecosystem. In addition, the organisation aims to catalyse insurance risk advice and alternative risk transfer solutions for Asia, address pandemic, climate, and cyber threats, and encourage capital market engagement in risk financing.
Furthermore, the country wishes to improve the Variable Capital Company regime and other fund structures to meet the needs of a broader industry; develop private credit to supplement private equity and venture capital funding; and anchor promising FinTech start-ups in areas such as Web 3.0, artificial intelligence, and green FinTech.
MAS will facilitate the development of digital infrastructure and platforms under ITM 2025. It will increase the efficiency of primary bond issuances, listing, and settlement processes, as well as reinforce Singapore’s position as the preferred bond issuance and listing destination.
The agency will also create an industry funds settlement utility to centralise subscription, redemption, and record-keeping procedures and to ease fund data flow reconciliation, lowering settlement time and increasing efficiency.
In addition, it will create a digital platform to connect small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) throughout growing zones. This accelerates trade discovery and makes trade financing more accessible to participating SMEs.
On the other hand, to accelerate Asia’s transition to net-zero energy, MAS is collaborating with the industry to develop creative solutions for scaling up sustainable and transition financing. It will bring more clarity to transition initiatives, such as the creation of an industry-led taxonomy for eight core industries.
In addition to encouraging the decarbonisation of real economy sectors through appropriate corporate financing solutions; improving sustainability disclosures and developing data utilities, such as Project GreenPrint, to facilitate firms’ sustainability disclosures and investors’ access to companies’ ESG data; and providing S$100 million in grant funding between 2021 and 2025 for capability building, green FinTech, climate risk and reinsurance, and solutions for sustainable development.
MAS’s goal is to improve payment connectivity while also creating a creative and accountable digital asset ecosystem. Targeting to increase cross-border payment connections with regional economies; Investigate the possibilities of distributed ledger technology in promising applications. Tokenise financial and real-world assets and enable digital currency integration.
To build a robust workforce, MAS and the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) will collaborate closely with the financial industry and tripartite partners.
Over the year 2021-2025, the Financial Sector Development Fund offers S$400 million grant to the Talent and Leaders in Finance programme to allow industry professionals to take on good employment and grow in their careers. This includes the following:
- Build workforce competencies in areas of growth and offer training support to finance professionals at various stages of their careers.
- Create specialised talent in fields such as sustainability and technology.
- Develop leaders by providing them with opportunities to gain expertise, international exposure, and networks that will assist them in succeeding in their leadership roles.
