ong chong tee : observations and thoughts from a financial regulator ’ s perspective keynote address by mr ong chong tee, deputy managing director ( financial supervision ) of the monetary authority of singapore, at the association of certified anti - money laundering specialists ( acams ) 9th annual anti - money laundering & financial crime conference, singapore, 24 april 2017. * * * 1. good morning. mr timothy mcclinton, president and ceo of the association of certified antimoney laundering specialists ( acams ) ; ms hue dang, cams - audit head of asia ; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. i am delighted to join you in this 9th annual anti - money laundering & financial crime conference in asia pacific. 2. i like to commend acams ’ s leadership and your membership for the extensive work on training and various outreach programmes relating to financial crime detection and prevention. many of you are specialists and experts in this area. but as malcolm forbes once said : one definition of an expert would be someone who knows enough of a subject to know that he does not know how much he does not know. fora such as this are therefore beneficial for collective learning and sharing, to plug knowledge gaps and to exchange perspectives. 3. allow me to share some observations and thoughts this morning from a financial regulator ’ s perspective. 4. for some years now, the global community has been stepping up our efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. the integrity and stability of the international financial system must not be exploited by those who engage in criminal activities. 5. an ongoing challenge is that the threats are ever evolving. the nature of illicit fund flows are varied and often cut across jurisdictions and economic sectors. in the case of money laundering ( ml ), the intention is to camouflage the origin of ill - gotten proceeds or property. terrorist financing ( tf ) can be different in that the sources of such funding may be of proper or legal origins. the motivation is often to disguise the use of the funds. 6. criminals can and will try to use increasingly sophisticated ways to “ beat the system ” to launder money or finance terrorism. it is very difficult to estimate the size of this problem given its opaque nature. there have been various estimates that the amount of money laundered each year is far in excess of us $ 1 trillion. in truth, no one really knows. what is more important is that globally, it is recognised that this is an important issue that affects us all. ml

technology, e - commerce, entertainment and other services have increased their reach and influence during the pandemic. globally, microsoft, google, meta ( formely facebook ), amazon and apple are the face of bigtechs. but beyond the united states, alibaba and tencent in china, mercado libre ( online market ) in latin america, ride - hailing services grub and gojek in south east asia, and mobile phone financial services firms in africa are increasingly exhibiting the characteristics of bigtechs though on a more regional scale. the global bigtechs are now estimated at 20 percent of the market capitalization on the new york stock exchange. to paint the picture more vividly, apple took 42 years to reach a market capitalization of us $ 1 trillion and 2 years to hit us $ 2 trillion. shockingly, all of the second trillion in valuation came in just 21 weeks to august 2020! the bigtechs have far and away displaced the traditional bluechips companies in manufacturing and aviation such as general electric and boeing in their dominance. second, is the proliferation of technology and innovations. from mobile banking to cloud computing, artificial intelligence to blockchain technology, internet of things, and robotics. all these developments herald significant opportunities to re - engineer the operations of governments and business and transform lives and livelihoods. indeed, we are at the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution, whose transformative powers are already evident in the financial sector, and will transform the way we live, work, and relate to one another. in the words of professor klaus schwab, who popularized this label : “ it is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. ” some of these technologies, such as artificial intelligence ( ai ) present significant opportunities to address some of our most pressing problems on the continent. for instance, despite micro, small and medium enterprises ( msmes ) being the engines of our economies, access to credit remains a key challenge. this in part arises from lack of traditional collateral such as title deeds used by financial institutions to secure credit facilities. with the proliferation of digital footprints, ai can be used to generate credit histories of msmes. these credit histories can then be used to appraise and appropriately price credit for msmes that would otherwise be excluded from accessing credit. the potential of ai extends to other critical areas including retail, advertising, manufacturing and health. but these