01/11/2011

A leading finance official from Singapore has told an international audience that they are actively seeking to grow the country's wealth management offerings for European countries - but also stepping up their efforts to guard against harbouring illicit funds.

Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), told the Wealth Management Institute that Singapore is the ideal location for the intermediation of growing wealth, due to its political and economic stability, transparency in governance and excellent regulation.

"While cross-border crimes have become increasingly sophisticated, Singapore is vulnerable to being used as a conduit for illicit funds," he said. "We need to guard against financial flows relating to corruption, terrorism, politically exposed persons, and weapons proliferation. More recently, efforts by various governments to strengthen tax enforcement have increased the risk of undeclared monies flowing to Singapore."

He said that MAS was committed to maintaining the integrity of Singapore's impressive legal and regulatory framework on anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT).

He said that the tightening of offshore regulations in a number of European countries had not resulted in a sudden increase in the amount of European money being managed in the country, rather Singapore was reaping the benefits of prosperity generated within Asia.

"European wealth is estimated at just 10 per cent of the USD900 billion offshore assets under management in Singapore and Hong Kong," he explained. "As one banker puts it, the emergence of Singapore and Hong Kong as wealth management hubs has to do with more Asian wealth being retained in Asia rather than a flight of new funds to Asia."