MAS and IFSCA sign agreement to advance cross-border fintech innovations

Tags: Economy/Finance International News

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) on 18 September signed a FinTech Co-operation Agreement (CA) to facilitate regulatory collaboration and partnership in FinTech. 

IMPORTANT FACTS -

• This formal treaty is called the Fintech Cooperation Agreement (CA).

• Sopanedu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, MAS and Joseph Joshi, Chief Technology Officer, IFSCA were present at the signing of the agreement.

Objectives of agreement :

• Through the CA, the two collaborating bodies aim to overlook sandbox collaboration and promote objectives such as the dissemination of information.

• MAS and IFSCA will maximise the use of existing sandboxes in their respective jurisdictions.

• This is to support the use of technological innovations.

What steps will be taken to achieve this ?

• Both bodies will refer and connect companies to each others’ sandboxes. 

• They will  innovatie cross-border experimentation in both jurisdictions.

• This agreement will allow IFSCA and MAS to determine suitable use cases which could benefit from these kinds of cross-border experiments.

• Inviting relevant jurisdictions to participate in this global regulation would be another initiative taken under this agreement.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION -

What is Financial Technology (Fintech) ?

• Fintech refers to the integration of technology by financial services companies to improve their use and delivery to consumers.

• Fintech is used to help companies, business owners and consumers to better manage their financial operations and processes etc.

• Examples of fintech applications are - robo advisors, payments apps, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending apps, investment apps, and crypto apps etc.