The Government has launched the SkillsFuture initiative last year, to allow all Singaporeans to acquire a mastery of skills and to be better prepared for future jobs. This can be helpful to financial market professionals such as our trading representatives as example. 48. The Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) has worked with SGX to conduct a survey polling some 1,200 trading representatives last year for their feedback on their training needs and professional development. IBF has also organised extensive consultations with multiple stakeholders such as Securities Association of Singapore (SAS) and the Society of Remisiers of Singapore (SRS), as well as arranged focus group discussions with individual remisiers and dealers. 49. As a follow up to these consultations, IBF will be introducing a new set of competency standards to help trading representatives acquire competencies to service their clients better. IBF will also be working closely with the SGX Academy, SRS as well as the larger brokingfirms to have in place a wide offering of training programmes to be made available to trading representatives 50. MAS will continue to support the various training initiatives. All learning and development programmes formally recognised by IBF will receive at least 50% funding subsidy 2 2 from the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF). In addition, trading representatives who are prepared to undergo the IBF Standards certification programme will receive 70% funding subsidy. You might be aware that the SkillsFuture Credit has already been rolled out early this month. Trading representatives can use the $ Credit for eligible training programmes.

Many of these standards are implemented through the exchanges’ own business rules to ensure fair and orderly trading. 9. This brings me to the subject of SGX as a self-regulatory organisation or SRO. Singapore’s capital markets operate under a dual-level regulatory framework. The MAS is the statutory regulator, and we have the broad mandate of overseeing the proper functioning of financial markets, including exchanges like the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and newer entrants such as ICE Futures Singapore (ICE Futures) and EUREX. The MAS, as you all know, is an integrated financial supervisor and our Capital Markets Group performs the equivalent regulatory functions as other standalone securities regulators including the SEC in the US, the SFC in Hong Kong or ASIC in Australia; our regulatory powers encompass policy making, supervision and enforcement. 10. The exchanges, with their frontline interface with industry players, traders and investors, perform complementary and important roles in ensuring fair, orderly and transparent markets. The exchanges are accountable to MAS on how they exercise these regulatory responsibilities. 11. Questions have been raised, and quite understandably so, on whether a listed for-profit exchange can discharge its role as a regulator. 12. In Singapore, this issue has been reviewed periodically since the demutualisation and merger of the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) and Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) in 1999, to form SGX. It is important to be mindful of what the SRO function entails. 13. Let me elaborate. The SRO function goes beyond listings, which has been the main area of focus.