The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) recently issued a Notice imposing mandatory baseline standards of due diligence and conduct requirements “for corporate finance (CF) advisers.”
These requirements aim to “raise the standards of conduct of CF advisers, improve the quality of disclosures and allow investors to make informed decisions.”
As noted in the update from MAS, CF advisers that “assist entities in fund raising from the general public will henceforth be subject to mandatory minimum standards when conducting due diligence on CF transactions.”
As mentioned in the announcement, these reportedly “include conducting background checks and interviews with relevant stakeholders; conducting site visits of prospective issuers’ key assets; assessing knowledge, skills and experience of third-party service providers; as well as ensuring that material issues are satisfactorily resolved or clearly disclosed.”
The update from MAS further noted that CF advisers will also “have to comply with enhanced requirements to mitigate conflicts of interests, such as where the adviser’s related corporations or controlling shareholders also provide services to the same customer.”
Mr Lim Tuang Lee, Assistant Managing Director (Capital Markets), MAS, said:
“Corporate finance advisers, through their work in advising prospective issuers, enable investors to make informed decisions by facilitating adequate and accurate disclosures. They play an important role in safeguarding investor interests and the integrity of our capital markets.”
These requirements are “set out in the Notice on Business Conduct Requirements for Corporate Finance Advisers.”
MAS has taken into account feedback “received from the public consultation.”
The Notice can be accessed here. And the public consultation and MAS’ response to the feedback received can be found here.
MAS thanks all respondents for their feedback.
In other recent updates, it was noted that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the linkage between Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
This will “enable customers of participating financial institutions in Singapore and India to send and receive funds between bank accounts or e-wallets across the two countries in real-time.”
They can do this “using just the mobile phone number, UPI identity, or Virtual Payment Address (VPA).” The linkage “provides customers with a safe, simple, and cost-effective way to make cross-border fund transfers.”
The launch was “officiated by Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, and Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.”
MAS Managing Director Ravi Menon and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das “executed live cross-border fund transfers to each other from their respective locations in Singapore and India.”