Industry Interviews

I grew up in Singapore in the 1980s and save for four years when I pursued degrees in the UK and US, have spent all my life here. My husband is a finance lawyer in private practice and we have three children, who range in age from 15 to 9, and a dog, Harley, who was rescued from an island off Singapore a couple of years ago. On weekends, I can usually be found nagging the children to do their homework or chasing the dog around various dog runs in Singapore (East Coast Park, Jurong Lake Garden and Bishan Park are some of our favourites). Outside work, I serve as President of the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association, which assists ex-drug offenders in their recovery from drug addiction, as well as their families. We provide aftercare and counselling to support our clients as they reintegrate into the community and also help them find employment. I’ve also been serving on the Board of Governors of St Joseph’s Institution, a secondary school, for the past year and it’s been wonderful working with this group of passionate educators.

My undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are in law. I’ve always enjoyed the analytical rigour and structure that legal training provides, and enjoyed my work as a Justices’ Law Clerk to the Chief Justice and other Singapore Supreme Court judges, Assistant Registrar and later, a District Judge. My first love has always been criminal law and I spent about six years working as a prosecutor in the Attorney-General’s Chambers, covering everything from murder trials to sex crimes and white collar offences appellate work. I was later asked to set up MAS’ Enforcement Department, consolidating MAS’ enforcement function across capital markets, banking and insurance within a specialised team with investigation, legal, forensics and surveillance capabilities. I stumbled into financial sector development, after spending the first 17 years of my career in prosecution, judicial and enforcement roles. When I first moved to MAS’ Development and International Group, it felt like a universe apart from my previous roles, but I’ve really enjoyed learning about different asset classes, meeting industry stakeholders and understanding their strengths and challenges, and working with industry to find solutions and unlock growth. The work is extremely multi-faceted and my vocabulary has definitely expanded and changed significantly since my legal days!

One of our strong points is that our financial sector has well-diversified strengths across multiple pillars of financial sector competitiveness. In terms of financial services and asset classes, we have broad yet strong capabilities across wealth and asset management, foreign exchange and derivatives, insurance and risk financing, fixed income, infrastructure finance, as well as FinTech and innovation. They complement and reinforce one another, and draw in a diverse ecosystem of financial services firms, capital markets participants and other stakeholders such as pension funds and multilateral development banks that seek financing solutions or investments across multiple asset classes. Investors also appreciate our pro-business and cost-competitive environment, international connectivity, and our skilled and cosmopolitan workforce. These strengths as well as Singapore’s ability to attract global talent have allowed us to emerge as a leading full-service fund management and domiciliation hub acting as a gateway to Asia. There has also been significant interest in the Variable Capital Companies framework that we launched in 2020, and I think we are well-positioned to grow our fund and asset management sector further.

I have seen two major changes in Singapore’s overall financial landscape over the past 10 years, both of which are still continuing to unfold today. The first is the growing role of technology and its intersection with many financial services to improve customer experiences, reduce intermediary transaction costs, and make existing financial processes more efficient. We see the technological integration with financial services across a range of areas, including digital banking, mobile payments and the asset and wealth management space. A key focus area for the SFIG is to consider how new technologies can be applied to enhance the funds industry. Our Infrastructure and Innovation Working Group is examining the feasibility of developing fund data and settlement platforms that collect and harness insights through data analytics, streamline manual processes and automate reporting. Deeper recognition of the importance of sustainability and sustainable finance is without a doubt the second key change. Singapore-based banks, insurers, asset managers have been working with the MAS to support the adoption of ESG industry standards and guidelines and encourage industry-led capacity building and training efforts. We also have a US$2 billion Green Investments Programme to deepen green investment capabilities and increase the management of green-focused funds in Singapore. Singapore’s commitment to sustainable finance and the growing investor demand for ESG products is a significant growth opportunity for investment funds, fund managers and service providers that can provide trustworthy, transparent and efficient ESG data and investment services.

As long-term trends such as digitalisation and sustainability continue to transform financial services, Singapore needs to continue to be able to attract new ideas, talent and companies from across the world. This diversity of participation has been fundamental to our financial sector’s success and will continue to underpin its development. I do look to other financial centres to see how they communicate and share ideas, as well as attract talent. An important ingredient of success for Singapore is our well-developed framework for public-private collaboration between MAS and the financial sector. We work closely with industry partners and consult them extensively, and often bring together industry stakeholders from within and outside the financial services sector to work on anything from policy design, industry utilities and capability building. SFIG is a good example of this.

My vision for SFIG is that it continues to grow as an inclusive and outcome-driven platform for different stakeholders across the entire asset management value chain to develop Singapore’s funds ecosystem. We need to foster collaboration and cross-pollinate perspectives from innovators, industry participants and institutions so that we can implement effective initiatives and drive the sustainable growth of the Singapore funds industry. Building effective communication channels and collaborative mechanisms between research institutes, the industry and government will help to drive substantive change in the financial sector and I would envision SFIG as a key avenue to bring the various strands of this triple helix together for the asset management and funds landscape. We also see a growing number of funds and complementary fund services that are building their presence in Singapore, and I hope that SFIG will tap on this rich and expanding pool of industry expertise. SFIG’s unique role in bringing together multiple industry players, with different perspectives and considerations represented, will help us position our asset management and funds landscape for future growth.

Definitely nasi lemak – and I am happy to have it anytime, anywhere, whether it be a $3 version at a neighbourhood hawker centre or the posh version at the Coconut Club.

My favourite local food place (which doesn’t qualify as a restaurant) is the 88 Hong Kong Roast Meat Specialist staff at a coffee shop along Lavender Street. The queue is almost always very long, but the roast duck and pork are definitely worth the wait. For non-Asian food, it would be a tough fight between Buko Nero along Tanjong Pagar Road and Venue by Sebastian at Downtown Gallery – conveniently, both are a stone’s throw away from MAS. Lucky me!