Singapore manages S$6.7 trillion in assets, most of them from abroad. The articles collected here explain how a bank approaches a new client, how a treasury is kept and off-ramped, and how a family holds wealth through a fund, a trust or a family office. They also show where the business began, in the credit networks and remittance houses of the nineteenth century. Part E of the financial centre book, on wealth management and private banking, is still to come.
MAS licenses local banks, qualifying full banks, full banks, wholesale banks and merchant banks, and its directory read on 4 November 2026 lists 196 licences in the banking sector, a count in which one bank may appear several times. The Monetary Authority of Singapore began operations on 1 January 1971 and combines the roles of central bank and regulator.
Assets under management reached S$6.7 trillion at the end of 2025, up 10 per cent, with net inflows of S$376 billion in that year. Some 76 per cent came from outside Singapore and 88 per cent were invested outside it.
For a family or an entrepreneur, the practical questions concern account opening, the source of wealth, the choice between a bank, a trust company and a family office, and the tax treatment of investment income.
The roots are old. Chinese merchants extended credit on reputation, and remittance houses carried migrants' money home, long before modern private banking arrived.
The articles cover banks and accounts, and the origins of Singapore's credit culture. Start with opening an account in Singapore, banks and custodians that take crypto or remittance houses and the qiaopi networks.
Clan, Kongsi and Credit: The Moral Economy of Chinese Commerce
The Geneva volume opens its account of the financial centre with Calvin, because the moral economy of the Reformed faith shaped the way Geneva thought about credit, interest, work and wealth. Read more Singapore · OriginsConfucian ethics and commerce: a debate revisited
The debate about religion and capitalism in China began with Max Weber. Read more Singapore · OriginsDialect groups, clan associations and huiguan
The Chinese population of Singapore was divided by dialect, by district of origin and to a considerable extent by occupation. Read more Singapore · OriginsKongsi and secret societies: governance beyond the colonial state
The word kongsi has several meanings that shed light on the history of Chinese organisation. Read more Singapore · OriginsXinyong: reputation as collateral
Chinese merchants used the word xinyong to describe the quality that made a person worthy of credit. Read more Singapore · OriginsRemittance houses and the qiaopi networks
Chinese migrants in Singapore sent a large part of their earnings to their families in China. The instrument was the qiaopi, a letter accompanied by a remittance of money. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Straits Chinese: a bridge between two legal worlds
Not all Chinese in Singapore were recent migrants. Read more Singapore · OriginsFrom personal trust to institutional trust
The transition from personal to institutional trust took place gradually. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe moral economy of the Strait and the comparison with Geneva
The first chapter of this part argued that the ports of the Strait succeeded when they offered protection, predictability and moderate costs. Read more Singapore · OriginsClan, Kongsi and Credit: The Moral Economy of Chinese Commerce: summary
Singapore’s counterpart to the Calvinist ethic of Geneva was an institutional economy of trust built by Chinese migrants from families, dialect and district associations, temples, sworn brotherhoods… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks
The merchants who built the entrepôt described in Part A needed two kinds of institution that the port did not at first possess. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyGuthrie, Boustead and the European agency houses
Chapter IV of Part A described the agency house as the central institution of the European commercial community of early Singapore: a firm that sold goods on commission for principals elsewhere,… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chartered Bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and the exchange banks
Singapore had no bank during its first two decades. The first branch was opened in 1840 by the Union Bank of Calcutta. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyFinancing trade: bills of exchange and documentary credits
The basic instrument of trade finance in the nineteenth century was the bill of exchange. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyInsurance, shipping and the service economy
Modern insurance came to Southeast Asia with the merchants. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyEuropean firms and their Chinese intermediaries
The exchange banks faced a problem that their charters could not solve. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe legacy in today’s financial centre
Several institutions of the colonial trade economy still operate in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks: the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore both owed their nineteenth-century financial development to the combination of partnerships and joint-stock banks. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks: summary
From the 1820s onwards, European agency houses such as Guthrie & Co., Boustead & Co. and Behn, Meyer & Co. organised the trade of Singapore as partnerships that sold goods on commission, bought… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC
For most of the nineteenth century the Chinese merchants of Singapore had no bank of their own. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe first Chinese banks in Singapore
The European banks arrived in Singapore long before any Chinese bank was founded. A branch of the Union Bank of Calcutta opened in 1840. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyHokkien, Teochew and Cantonese banking
The Chinese of Singapore were divided into speech groups, each with its own associations, temples, trades and leaders. Chapter V of Part A described this dialect map and the institutions built on it. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Depression and the merger of 1932
The Chinese banks operated within a monetary system that offered them no protection. Under the currency board, local money could exist only if fully backed by sterling reserves. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyOverseas Chinese capital and the China connection
The Chinese banks of Singapore looked north as well as south. Ho Hong opened its Hong Kong branch in 1923 and branches in Batavia and Shanghai by 1927, when it had nine branches in all. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese bank as a community institution
The directors of the Chinese banks were also the leaders of the community. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: practical consequences
The history of the Chinese banks may seem distant from the regulated banking of today. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: Comparison with Geneva
The crisis of 1931 struck Geneva and Singapore at the same time and through the same channel, the collapse of the international gold standard. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: summary
The Chinese merchants of Singapore founded their first deposit banks in the early twentieth century, starting with the Cantonese Kwong Yik Bank in 1903, whose collapse in 1913 through insider… Read more Singapore · Global CentreLiberalisation after 1998: Banks, Markets and the Opening of the Sector
For three decades after independence, Singapore built its financial centre on a paradox. Offshore, in the Asian Dollar Market and on SIMEX, it was one of the most open markets in Asia. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Financial Sector Review Group
The review that transformed the financial sector began as a response to global trends and only later became a response to a regional crisis. Read more Singapore · Global CentreOpening the banking sector to foreign banks
Before 1999 the many foreign banks in Singapore had only limited access to the domestic market. At the end of March 1998 Singapore had 154 commercial banks. Read more Singapore · Global CentreConsolidation of the local banks
The opening of the market was intended to change the local banks as much as to admit foreign ones. Read more Singapore · Global CentreCapital markets reform and the Singapore Exchange
The stock exchange was the second target of the reforms. Read more Singapore · Global CentreFrom supervision by rules to supervision by risk
The supervisory approach that MAS abandoned in 1998 had served Singapore well in one respect. Read more Singapore · Global CentrePractical consequences: entering and owning a bank in Singapore
The reforms after 1998 created the licence structure that foreign banks still navigate. A foreign bank that wishes to serve retail customers must hold a full bank licence. Read more Singapore · Global CentreLiberalisation after 1998: Banks, Markets and the Opening of the Sector: Comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
Switzerland opened its financial sector in the same decade, by a different route. The Swiss banks had long fixed their fees through agreements administered by the Swiss Bankers Association. Read more Singapore · Global CentreLiberalisation after 1998: Banks, Markets and the Opening of the Sector: summary
The Financial Sector Review Group, chaired by Lee Hsien Loong from 1997, worked through private sector committees and changed the philosophy of MAS from detailed regulation to supervision,… Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Wealth Management Strategy of the 2000s
In 1971, six years after independence, Lee Kuan Yew declared that Singapore set out to be to Southeast Asia what Switzerland was to Europe, “a money and gold market”. Read more Singapore · Global CentreWealth management as a strategic priority
The policy of the 2000s grew out of an earlier decision to develop fund management. Read more Singapore · Global CentreBanking secrecy under the Banking Act
Banking secrecy in Singapore rests on statute. Read more Singapore · Global CentreTrust law reform and the Trust Companies Act
Private banking in the common law world rarely serves individuals alone. Read more Singapore · Global CentrePrivate banks from Switzerland, Europe and Asia
Swiss banks had been present in Singapore long before the wealth management strategy. The Union Bank of Switzerland (SBG) opened its first representation in Singapore in 1971. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Wealth Management Strategy of the 2000s: practical consequences
The wealth management strategy of the 2000s left a legal and institutional inheritance that shapes practice today. Read more Singapore · Global CentreSingapore and Geneva: competition and complementarity
The comparison between Singapore and Geneva begins with secrecy. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Wealth Management Strategy of the 2000s: summary
From 1998 the government of Singapore and MAS pursued a deliberate strategy to turn the city into a global centre for asset and wealth management, using public mandates to private managers, tax… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Regulatory Architecture: MAS, the Banking Act, the SFA, the FAA and the FSMA
A financial centre that manages wealth for clients from many countries sells, among other things, the quality of its supervision. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Monetary Authority of Singapore as integrated regulator
After Parliament had passed the Monetary Authority of Singapore Act in 1970, MAS was formed on 1 January 1971. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Banking Act and private banking
The Banking Act has a longer history than its date suggests. A banking bill was first introduced in Parliament in 1962, although questions surrounding a new currency delayed the legislation. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Securities and Futures Act and capital markets services
Before 2002, Singapore’s capital markets were governed by several statutes, including the Securities Industry Act and the Futures Trading Act. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Financial Advisers Act
The Financial Advisers Act came into force together with the SFA on 1 October 2002. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Financial Services and Markets Act 2022
By the early 2020s, MAS’s powers were scattered across many statutes. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementIndividual accountability and conduct
On 10 September 2020 MAS issued Guidelines on Individual Accountability and Conduct. They set five outcomes that financial institutions are expected to achieve. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Regulatory Architecture: MAS, the Banking Act, the SFA, the FAA and the FSMA: practical consequences
For a foreign group that wants to serve wealthy clients from Singapore, the architecture described in this chapter translates into a series of concrete decisions. The first concerns the vehicle. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Regulatory Architecture: MAS, the Banking Act, the SFA, the FAA and the FSMA: Comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
The Swiss framework described in the Geneva volume rests on the Banking Act, the Financial Institutions Act, the Financial Services Act, the Collective Investment Schemes Act, the Financial Market… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Regulatory Architecture: MAS, the Banking Act, the SFA, the FAA and the FSMA: summary
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, founded on 1 January 1971, gradually took over the supervision of insurance, securities and currency issue and now acts as both central bank and integrated… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe End of Banking Secrecy for Foreign Tax Purposes
For most of its modern history, Singapore offered foreign clients a banking confidentiality that foreign tax authorities could not penetrate. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe OECD standard of 2009 and Singapore's commitment
Banking confidentiality in Singapore rests on statute. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFATCA and the intergovernmental agreement
The decisive external impulse came from the United States. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Common Reporting Standard
FATCA served as the template for a multilateral system. In 2013 the G20 asked the OECD to develop a single global standard for automatic exchange. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementTax crimes as predicate offences for money laundering
Exchange of tax information concerns the relationship between states. The designation of tax crimes as predicate offences for money laundering concerns the conduct of the banks themselves. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementLegacy assets and the regularisation of clients
Every financial centre that abandoned tax secrecy faced the problem of its existing book of clients. Accounts opened under the old rules contained assets that clients had never declared at home. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe End of Banking Secrecy for Foreign Tax Purposes: practical consequences
The cumulative effect of these rules is that a Singapore financial institution must be able to show, for every client, that it understands the client’s tax residence and has no reason to suspect… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe End of Banking Secrecy for Foreign Tax Purposes: Comparison with Geneva
Switzerland and Singapore crossed the same threshold within days of each other. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe End of Banking Secrecy for Foreign Tax Purposes: summary
Singapore’s statutory banking confidentiality under section 47 of the Banking Act lost its effect against foreign tax authorities between 2009 and 2018, although it continues to protect customers… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFamily Offices: Sections 13O and 13U and the Single Family Office
At the end of 2020, about 400 single family offices in Singapore held a tax incentive granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe rise of the single family office
MAS describes a single family office as an entity that manages wealth for, or on behalf of, one family and is wholly owned or controlled by members of that family. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe tax incentive schemes and their conditions
Singapore’s tax incentives for funds form a family of four schemes under the Income Tax Act 1947. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementLicensing exemptions and supervisory expectations
Fund management is a regulated activity under the Securities and Futures Act 2001, for which a capital markets services licence is normally required. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementSubstance, local spending and investment requirements
The headcount condition is the clearest expression of the demand for substance. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementScrutiny after 2023
On 15 August 2023 the police arrested ten foreign nationals in coordinated raids. The assets eventually seized, frozen or subject to prohibition of disposal orders amounted to about S$3 billion. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementPractical consequences for families and their advisers
The choice between section 13O, section 13OA and section 13U follows from the size of the assets and the existing structure. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFamily Offices: Sections 13O and 13U and the Single Family Office: Comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
The Geneva volume described a city where family offices grew out of the private banking tradition, without any special tax regime. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFamily Offices: Sections 13O and 13U and the Single Family Office: summary
Single family offices with Singapore tax incentives multiplied from about 400 at the end of 2020 to more than 2,000 at the end of 2024, drawn by stability, the common law, a deep private banking… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementTrusts, Holding Structures and the Variable Capital Company
A financial centre that serves families and investors needs more than banks and asset managers. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementTrust law in Singapore
The trust reached Singapore with English law. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementLicensed trust companies
The Trust Companies Act 2005 governs the licensing and regulation of trust companies in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementPrivate trust companies
A private trust company (PTC) is a company formed to act as trustee for the trusts of one family. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe Variable Capital Company
By 2017 Singapore had become one of the leading centres for the management of funds in Asia, yet its asset managers domiciled many of their funds elsewhere. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementHolding companies, treaties and substance
The private company limited by shares remains the most common structuring vehicle in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementTrusts, Holding Structures and the Variable Capital Company: practical consequences
The choice of vehicle follows from the purpose of the structure. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementComparison with Geneva, Hong Kong and Jersey
Geneva and Singapore both administer trusts for international families, although their legal positions differ fundamentally. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementTrusts, Holding Structures and the Variable Capital Company: summary
Singapore offers wealthy families and investors a complete set of structuring vehicles under its own law: the trust, the licensed and the private trust company, the Variable Capital Company and the… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFund Management, External Asset Managers and Licensing
A wealthy family that moves its assets to Singapore rarely deals with a single institution. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementLicensing of fund management companies
For most of the period after the Securities and Futures Act 2001 came into force, a large part of Singapore’s fund management industry operated without a licence. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementAccredited and institutional investors
The distinction between retail and A/I managers rests on the classes of investors defined in section 4A of the Securities and Futures Act. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementExternal asset managers and custodian banks
An external asset manager, often called an independent asset manager, manages the portfolios of private clients without holding their assets. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementCompliance functions and the external compliance officer
MAS expects every manager to have compliance arrangements that match the nature, scale and complexity of its business. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFund Management, External Asset Managers and Licensing: practical consequences
A client who entrusts assets to a Singapore manager should first establish its regulatory status. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementComparison with the Swiss regime for portfolio managers
Switzerland brought its independent asset managers under prudential supervision only with the Financial Institutions Act of 15 June 2018, which entered into force on 1 January 2020 together with the… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementFund Management, External Asset Managers and Licensing: summary
Every company that carries on business in fund management in Singapore needs a capital markets services licence under the Securities and Futures Act, and since the repeal of the registered regime on… Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementIntegrity Shocks: 1MDB and the 2023 Money Laundering Case
A financial centre lives on the trust of people who will never inspect it. Read more Singapore · Wealth Management1MDB and the Singapore banks
1Malaysia Development Berhad was created in 2009, the first year of Najib Razak as Prime Minister of Malaysia, as a state investment fund intended to promote the economic development of the country. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementSupervisory action by the Monetary Authority of Singapore
On 24 May 2016 MAS announced that it was withdrawing the status of BSI Bank Limited as a merchant bank in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementThe 2023 money laundering case
The case of 2023 had a long prehistory. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementLessons for onboarding and source-of-wealth checks
The common thread of both cases is that the warning signs were visible. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementReputation as a regulatory objective
Singapore treats the reputation of its financial centre as a public asset, comparable to its currency or its port. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementIntegrity Shocks: 1MDB and the 2023 Money Laundering Case: Comparison with Geneva
The 1MDB case links the two centres directly. Read more Singapore · Wealth ManagementIntegrity Shocks: 1MDB and the 2023 Money Laundering Case: summary
The diversion of more than 4.5 billion US dollars from the Malaysian fund 1MDB used private banks in Singapore, whose relationship managers moved large sums for Jho Low and his associates despite… Read more Singapore · StructuringThe bottleneck
Every structure in this Part fails without a bank account. The Zug GmbH cannot be registered until its capital is deposited at a Swiss bank. The Singapore Pte. Read more Singapore · StructuringOpening an account in Switzerland
Swiss banks distinguish two kinds of digital-asset client. Read more Singapore · StructuringOpening an account in Singapore
Singapore's three local banks (DBS, OCBC, UOB) and the licensed foreign banks apply a sector risk assessment to digital-asset businesses that has, since the 2022 collapses, been among the most… Read more Singapore · StructuringThe banks that say yes
The institutions below were, to my knowledge, open to digital-asset businesses or to private clients with digital-asset wealth on 30 June 2026. Read more Singapore · StructuringOff-ramping a treasury
A protocol treasury that needs fiat for salaries, rent and taxes has to convert tokens. Four routes exist. The first is sale on a centralised exchange and withdrawal to the entity's bank account. Read more Singapore · StructuringStablecoin treasury management
Many groups keep part of their treasury in stablecoins because they avoid the volatility of their own token and the friction of fiat. Read more Singapore · StructuringPayments and payroll in tokens
Paying staff and contractors in tokens is lawful in both hubs within limits. Read more Singapore · StructuringWhat a bank wants to see over time
An account that is opened can be closed. Banks in both hubs review digital-asset clients annually and close relationships that have drifted from the business described at opening. Read more