the market is collusive behaviour and price manipulation. mas has put in place a data analytics and pattern recognition system, to study trading behaviour and detect accounts that may be 6 / 9 bis central bankers'speeches acting in concert to manipulate share prices, or engaging in circular trading to create a false impression of market interest. another example is that mas is now working on a data analytics system to scour through the 3, 000 “ suspicious transaction reports ”, or strs, that financial institutions file each month on money laundering or terrorist financing risks. a major source of pain for financial institutions is regulators requesting for the same data more than once under different data collection exercises. we will fix this. by taking a more cohesive approach to data, mas will aim to achieve zero duplication in our data requests to financial institutions. if we ask for the same data twice, the institution will be allowed to gently turn us down! we will work with the industry on making this a reality. and saving the best for the last : mas will transform the way it collects data from financial institutions for supervisory purposes. today, financial institutions ’ data submissions to mas often involve manual processes to extract the information from their databases and fill up the mas - provided form or template. and over at mas, processing that data is also done manually. we will make this more painless. we have set a goal : all data requests from mas will eventually be in machine readable templates. the requested data will flow seamlessly from financial institutions ’ databases to our forms and ultimately to the supervisory dashboards of mas officers. no more “ cut - and - paste ”. we will work with the industry on an implementation plan and a reasonable timeline. making cross - border payments and settlements cheaper and faster : project ubin next, we must re - imagine a more efficient and secure way to conduct cross - border interbank payments and settlements. cross - border payments today rely on a correspondent banking network. banks hold balances with one another, and settlement occurs by adjusting these balances. there is counterparty risk, liquidity is split, and reconciliation is a major pain point. cross - border transactions often take days to settle, and at high cost to customers. this is the problem that project ubin seeks to solve, using distributed ledger technology to enable entities across different jurisdictions to make payments directly with one another : without intermediaries ; with much greater speed and efficiency, and at lower cost and risk. it is not an easy

koh yong guan : risk management development in singapore opening address by mr koh yong guan, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore, at the first mas risk conference, singapore, 31 january 2002. * * * ladies and gentlemen introduction it is my pleasure to address the first mas risk conference. i will cover two areas : • first, the changing financial landscape and the challenges they pose for risk management ; and • second, the introduction of three risk management initiatives. changing financial landscape and challenges over the last few years, there has been a fundamental change in the volatility of financial markets. the frequency and the contagion effects of crises affecting financial markets have also risen. the volatility of financial markets has increased. the lowering of regulatory barriers to capital flows has integrated global financial markets. this has increased the correlation and the transmission of volatility from one financial market to the next. as a result, the diversification benefits derived from investing in several markets have dissipated, leaving market participants exposed to greater financial risks than before. the emergence of complex derivative instruments has increased market liquidity, but also financial risk for those who are not well acquainted with the use of these instruments. while these new instruments have allowed market participants to transfer their credit risks and enhanced the efficient pricing of such risks, the use of derivatives for speculative purposes can result in large losses. the basle capital accord of 1988 was a landmark document for the banking industry. it helped increase the capital held by internationally active banks, and created a more level playing field for banks under different jurisdictions. however, there were some weaknesses in the accord. the most important of these was the practice of assigning the same risk weight to all counterparties in each class, irrespective of the differences in their credit - worthiness. these issues led regulators to propose a more risk sensitive framework. the proposed new capital accord will have a great influence on the risk management practices of banks. the new accord, however, poses challenges to asian banks and regulators alike. banks will have to develop more sophisticated risk management capability while regulators will need to build up technical knowledge as well as supervisory resources to validate banks ’ risk management systems. as financial markets progress towards greater transparency, the market disciplinary mechanism will reward banks that manage their risks effectively, and penalise those that do not. good risk management practice is thus even more essential for banks to maintain their competitiveness over the long run. the frequency of shocks has increased. in the