MAS Enhances Financial Cooperation with Various Authorities
MAS is working on enhancing financial cooperation with China, Ghana, and Hungary. MAS also announced partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to provide small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) with innovative financial and digital tools to help them better leverage data and more effectively access financing solutions. It will also create new opportunities for SMEs, including fintech firms, to expand to developing countries within the UNDP’s global network of 170 offices. UNDP and MAS will explore country-specific use cases in Africa to accelerate the adoption of digital finance by SMEs. "We are thrilled to partner with MAS to help prototype and scale innovative financial solutions across the developing world,” said Bradley Busetto, Director of the UNDP Global Center Singapore.
The following are the key highlights of developments in this area:
- MAS will work with Chinese central and provincial counterparts to broaden cooperation in green finance. In addition, MAS announced the award of a qualifying full bank license to China Construction Bank, under the China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement Upgrade Protocol.
- MAS and BOG, the central bank of Ghana, commenced discussions to adopt the Business sans Borders (BSB) open hub of platforms between Singapore and Ghana. These discussions on close cooperation will benefit the small and SMEs and micro-SMEs (MSMEs) in both countries by expanding their connectivity with their counterpart economy, while introducing innovative fintech and digital tools for SMEs. The SME Financial Trust Corridor (FTC), to be led by MAS and BOG, comprises a governance framework and a digital infrastructure, which banks and fintech companies in both countries could refer to and utilize when sharing key information relevant for credit assessment, while abiding by domestic and international regulations, such as data protection and anti-money laundering requirements.
- The cooperation agreement with Hungary sets out a framework for fintech collaboration between both countries. It will put in place a referral mechanism to help fintech firms access each other’s markets. MAS and MNB have also committed to exchange views on emerging market trends and developments in FinTech, as well as regulatory issues on financial services innovation.
Keywords: Europe, Asia Pacific, Hungary, Singapore, China, Ghana, Banking, SME, UNDP, Fintech, API Exchange, COVID-19, MNB, MAS
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