heng swee keat : international reform agenda – singapore ’ s challenges opening keynote address by mr heng swee keat, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore ( mas ), at the asian banker summit, singapore, 19 april 2010. * * * introduction 1. good morning. it gives me great pleasure to join you today at this 11th asian banker summit. 2. the inaugural asian banker summit was held in singapore about 10 years ago. at that time, asia was staging a strong recovery from the financial crisis which shook the region in 1997. today, we find ourselves at a similar inflection point. emerging from the crisis 3. the worst of the global financial crisis appears to be over. global financial conditions have since improved markedly and prospects for the world economy have brightened. asia ex - japan is leading the recovery, with its gdp already surpassing the precrisis level by nearly 8 %. for the whole of 2010, the region is expected to grow by 8 % over the previous year. the singapore economy has rebounded strongly and is expected to grow by 7 – 9 % this year. 4. while the immediate outlook is positive, we need to remain vigilant. the structural headwinds to growth in advanced economies remain. the transition from government - led stimulus to sustained private - sector driven growth may be more difficult in those economies which face rising sovereign debt levels. as global liquidity conditions are normalised – following the unprecedented easing of interest rates by major central banks – financial markets could experience bouts of volatility as a range of asset classes are repriced and this could impact negatively on various interest - sensitive industries. 5. in addition, the reform of the global financial system has to be carefully thought through, calibrated and sequenced. it is important that regulatory reforms do not become politicised, with a rush to adopt simple rules that seem to solve the problems. specific measures, each of which is sensible, may collectively create unintended outcomes and stymie the nascent economic recovery. in this regard, the basel committee ’ s quantitative impact studies will provide an important basis for us to take a more holistic view of the required changes. 6. so far, most of the discussions have been framed around the theme of “ how do we prevent a similar crisis from happening again. ” clearly, we must look back and learn from the crisis. but we must not fight the last war. we must also look forward.

12 / 02 / 2021 " pushing ahead with sor - sora transition in 2021 " - keynote speech by mr leong sing chiong, deputy managing director ( markets … speeches published date : 02 february 2021 " pushing ahead with sor - sora transition in 2021 " - keynote speech by mr leong sing chiong, deputy managing director ( markets & development ), monetary authority of singapore, at asifma virtual event : singapore ibor transition on 2 february 2021 1 good morning everyone. first, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year! let me also thank the asia securities industry & financial markets association ( asifma ) and the association of banks in singapore ( abs ) for organising this webinar and inviting me to speak on the important issue of singapore ’ s interest rate benchmark transition. 2 in the next 20 mins or so, i will do a brief recap of the key objectives and milestones that we had set out last year. i will then touch on some recent developments in the us and uk that have a bearing on our transition timelines, and i will finally outline what our priorities are for this year in the transition to singapore overnight rate average ( sora ). recap 3 back in 2019, the financial industry in singapore, represented by the abs and the singapore foreign exchange market committee ( sfemc ) [ 1 ], assessed that given the eventual discontinuation of usd london interbank [UNK] rate ( libor ) and sgd swap [UNK] rate ( sor ), the most sustainable and sensible path was to transition [UNK] sor markets to sora. sora is a robust interest rate benchmark underpinned by transactions in a deep and liquid overnight interbank funding market. such a shi would be aligned to the global direction in other major financial centres, and support continued active participation of global institutions and investors in sgd markets. https : / / www. mas. gov. sg / news / speeches / 2021 / pushing - ahead - with - sor - sora - transition - in - 2021 1 / 7 12 / 02 / 2021 " pushing ahead with sor - sora transition in 2021 " - keynote speech by mr leong sing chiong, deputy managing director ( markets … 4 this transition [UNK] was always going to be a complex task, and a strong public - private partnership was needed to address the wide - ranging implications across multiple industry stakeholders, in order to achieve a smooth transition. to