industry, setting out key observations and supervisory expectations, so as to promote broader sharing of best practices. i understand that the report has been well - received by the industry. i should add that while the report relates to private banking activities, many sound practices are relevant for other customer - facing business lines. i therefore strongly encourage all financial institutions to leverage on the report to benchmark their controls, and to put in place enhancements where relevant. 22 i had mentioned about deepening manpower capabilities. in this regard, competency building is imperative, to uplift aml / cft standards amongst industry professionals. i commend the abs for its suite of training options on aml / cft, ranging from thematic workshops, classroom trainings, to seminars such as this. i understand that attendance at this seminar and related aml / cft courses has been growing each year, and i hope this positive trend continues. attention to aml / cft has certainly been increasing, with certification providers like the international compliance training academy and the association of certified anti - money laundering specialists ( acams ) seeing more sign - ups. acams had also set up a singapore chapter late last year. in all, the resources and training avenues are there, so it is for all of you to tap on them. an effective culture of aml / cft cannot be created by hiring a few experts from elsewhere. instead, it is about raising awareness throughout the firm ; so do focus on “ growing your own timber ” alongside importing relevant expertise. strengthening the framework further 23 before i close this morning, i would like to announce two further measures that mas will undertake to strengthen our aml / cft regime : a. first, mas has been progressively increasing the level of disclosure on supervisory actions taken for breaches of aml / cft requirements. at this seminar last year, we disclosed aggregated figures of sanctions imposed for the preceding three years. while a gross picture can give an indication of how well the industry has implemented aml / cft measures, they do not sufficiently highlight any common or severe issue. building on this, mas will be looking to publish details of more severe penalties imposed on financial institutions for such breaches. in addition to deterring errant behaviour, this move will reinforce our preventive supervisory approach, and draw financial institutions ’ attention to more severe instances of deficiencies and breaches. financial institutions can then pre - emptively strengthen their own controls to prevent similar failures.

market manipulation and avoid serious market dislocations developing. so after much agonizing we acted on two fronts. first, we intervened in the stock and futures markets to deter market manipulation, by making sure that the manipulation did not pay off. second, we followed this action through with various measures to strengthen our monetary and financial systems. on the monetary side, we introduced technical measures to modify our currency board arrangements of our linked exchange rate system to make it less susceptible to manipulation. on the securities side, we are in the process of introducing a series of reform measures to lessen the potential for market dislocation. i am happy to say that our actions have been successful. there has been no indication of further market manipulation since the end of august. we have seen substantial unwinding of the short positions in our currency by the hedge funds, with considerable losses. and with the stock market having recovered substantially from the level at which we entered the market in the middle of august, more considerable losses were incurred also in their short positions in the stock index futures. much of the interest rate premium of the hong kong dollar over the us dollar has disappeared, clearly reflecting with hindsight the extent of the excessive pain that had been so mercilessly inflicted on the community by the manipulative plays. i hope you are now more sympathetic towards the controversial actions that we have taken. but in case you still have doubts, let me specifically address four accusations that have been hurled at us. the first accusation is that we were trying to jack up the market against trends dictated by fundamentals. alan greenspan used those words. but this is simply not true. we do not mind where the level of the market is, if that is what the adjustment process demands. no official view on the “ right ” market level has been taken and there never will be such a view. so if somebody shorted the market thinking that the adjustment should be deeper, and if the market did fall and he benefited from the short position, we would even congratulate him for having excellent foresight. but we are against market manipulation, specifically the manipulation of our currency market, taking advantage of our passiveness under the discipline of the rule - based currency board arrangements, to produce very high interest rates with a view to sending the stock market into a nosedive and benefiting from a short position in stock index futures. such manipulation was conducted with no regard to economic fundamentals. this presents serious risks of market disl