This section will collect articles on Singapore's capital market as the chapters of the financial centre book are published. Until then, the securities perimeter, prospectus rules, market misconduct and tokenised products are explained in the Digital Assets book, and current figures for SGX are given below with their dates.
On 30 September 2026 SGX had 604 listings, 406 on the Mainboard and 198 on Catalist, plus 60 on GlobalQuote. Its market capitalisation was reported at S$1,184.8 billion on that date. The last figure from an SGX report itself is S$1,120.3 billion at the end of April 2026.
Singapore was the third-largest foreign exchange centre in the BIS survey of April 2025, with US$1.485 trillion a day and a share of 11.8 per cent.
The Securities and Futures Act 2001 governs capital markets products and the platforms and intermediaries that deal in them. An offer generally needs a prospectus registered with MAS unless an exemption applies.
Part 12 of the Act prohibits false trading, market manipulation, misleading statements and insider trading.
The relevant sections for now are in the Digital Assets book. Start with capital markets products, prospectus requirements and exemptions or market misconduct.
The Asian Dollar Market of 1968
In October 1968 the Singapore branch of Bank of America began to accept deposits in United States dollars from non-residents and to lend them on to borrowers outside Singapore. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Eurodollar market and the Asian time zone
The Asian Dollar Market was the regional counterpart of a market that had developed in Europe during the previous decade. A Eurodollar is a dollar deposit held with a bank outside the United States. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Asian Currency Unit
The practical arrangements were worked out during 1968. Read more Singapore · IndependenceTax incentives for offshore banking
The first and most important incentive concerned the tax on interest. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe growth of offshore banking in the 1970s
The growth of the market in its first decade was extraordinary. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Asian Dollar Market as template for later strategies
The Asian Dollar Market is more than an episode in banking history. It established a method that Singapore has applied repeatedly. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Asian Dollar Market of 1968: practical consequences
The Asian Dollar Market belongs to history, but its legacy shapes the work of practitioners today. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Asian Dollar Market and the comparison with Geneva, Hong Kong and London
Geneva and Singapore both became financial centres by serving wealth and money that originated elsewhere. Their methods differed. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Asian Dollar Market of 1968: summary
The Asian Dollar Market began in October 1968, when Bank of America opened the first Asian Currency Unit in Singapore to take dollar deposits from non-residents during the hours when London and New… Read more Singapore · Global CentreSIMEX, Barings and the Discipline of Markets
On Sunday 26 February 1995 administrators were appointed to Barings, the oldest merchant bank in London, after a trader in its Singapore futures subsidiary had run up losses that exceeded the… Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Stock Exchange of Singapore
Trading in shares in Singapore began informally among brokers who dealt in the securities of rubber and tin companies, banks and trading houses, whose development Part B described. Read more Singapore · Global CentreSIMEX and financial futures
The futures market of Singapore grew out of a commodity exchange. The Gold Exchange of Singapore traded gold futures. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe collapse of Barings in 1995
Barings had been present in London merchant banking for more than 230 years. In the late 1980s it entered new businesses, above all securities trading through Baring Securities Limited. Read more Singapore · Global CentreRegulatory responses and market discipline
The collapse produced two official inquiries, one in each country. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe merger into the Singapore Exchange
By the late 1990s both exchanges faced a changed environment. Electronic trading allowed orders to cross borders instantly, while new trading systems competed with the traditional exchanges. Read more Singapore · Global CentreSIMEX, Barings and the Discipline of Markets: summary
Singapore’s stock exchange grew from a brokers’ association of 1930 into a market shared with Malaysia until 1973, while the Pan-Electric crisis of 1985, which closed the exchange for three days,… 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