The history of Singapore as a financial centre starts long before 1819. The articles collected here explain the Strait of Malacca and the port of Temasek, Raffles and the free port, the treaties of 1824, the reception of English law, the entrepôt economy, the agency houses and the credit chains, clan and kongsi, the remittance networks and the Crown Colony after 1867. Part A of the book is complete, and Part B is being published as it is written.
On 6 February 1819 Raffles concluded the treaty with the Temenggong and Sultan Hussein that gave the East India Company a trading post. The free port was the decision that shaped the city most. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 17 March 1824 and the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance of the same year secured the settlement, and the Second Charter of Justice of 1826 brought English law.
Merchants of many origins made the port work. Agency houses sold on commission and discounted bills, and Chinese traders extended credit on the strength of reputation, or xinyong.
The Straits Settlements became a Crown Colony on 1 April 1867. The chapters published so far take the story to the courts, ordinances, company law and revenue of that colony.
Later dates are still to be told in the book: independence on 9 August 1965, the Asian Dollar Market of 1968, the Monetary Authority of Singapore from 1 January 1971, Temasek in 1974 and GIC in 1981.
Start with Part A on the origins, Raffles and the free port of 1819 or Part B on colony and commerce.
A Place on the Strait: Temasek, Singapura and the Maritime Trade of the Malay World
Every financial centre begins with a place. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Strait of Malacca as a corridor of trade
The Strait of Malacca owes its importance to the winds. Read more Singapore · OriginsTemasek and Singapura in the fourteenth century: archaeology and chronicle
The history of the island before 1819 rests on three kinds of written evidence: Chinese travel and geographical literature, Javanese court poetry and the Malay historical tradition. Read more Singapore · OriginsMalacca, Johor and the Riau archipelago
Malacca, founded around 1400 by the refugee prince from Singapura, became within a few decades the greatest port of Southeast Asia. Read more Singapore · OriginsPortuguese, Dutch and British rivalry in the Straits
The Portuguese who conquered Malacca in 1511 brought a new model of trade to the Strait. Read more Singapore · OriginsWhat the pre-colonial port teaches about location and trust
The history of the Strait before 1819 shows that geography creates opportunity. The island of Singapore occupied an exceptional position that remained unchanged throughout the period. Read more Singapore · OriginsA Place on the Strait: Temasek, Singapura and the Maritime Trade of the Malay World: summary
The island of Singapore controls the southern exit of the Strait of Malacca, the shortest sea route between the Indian Ocean and China, a position that made it a potential market from the earliest… Read more Singapore · OriginsRaffles, the East India Company and the Free Port of 1819
On 6 February 1819, in a ceremony on the plain beside the Singapore River, a servant of the English East India Company signed a treaty with a Malay prince whom he had recognised as sultan a few days… Read more Singapore · OriginsThe East India Company and the China trade
The English East India Company, chartered in 1600, was by the early nineteenth century a hybrid without parallel: a joint-stock company whose shareholders met in London and a sovereign power that… Read more Singapore · OriginsStamford Raffles and William Farquhar
Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was born on 5 July 1781 on board the ship Ann off Port Morant, Jamaica, and entered the service of the East India Company in London as a clerk in 1795, at the age of… Read more Singapore · OriginsThe agreements with Sultan Hussein and the Temenggong
Raffles’ expedition landed on St John’s Island on 28 January 1819 and arrived at the Singapore River the next day. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe free-port principle: open to every flag
The decision that shaped Singapore more than any other was the decision to make it a free port. Read more Singapore · OriginsEarly growth and the first merchant community
The growth of the settlement in its first years was spectacular. In the first year, the value of trade was reported at 400,000 Spanish dollars. Read more Singapore · OriginsWhat 1819 means for the financial centre
The founding of 1819 established the institutional foundations on which the financial centre was later built. Read more Singapore · OriginsRaffles, the East India Company and the Free Port of 1819: summary
The East India Company founded Singapore in 1819 to secure the route of its China trade and to break the Dutch hold on the southern Strait, under a cautious mandate that sought a British station… Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Treaties of 1824 and the Legal Foundations of British Singapore
The treaty of 6 February 1819 gave the East India Company a trading post on an island whose legal status was contested. The Dutch disputed the authority of the sultan who had signed it. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824
The dispute over Singapore was one of several questions that divided Britain and the Netherlands in Asia after the Napoleonic Wars. Both powers had an interest in a settlement. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Treaty of Friendship and Alliance of 1824
The agreement of 7 June 1823 had already transferred the judicial powers and land rights of the sultan and the Temenggong to the British in exchange for lifelong monthly payments of 1,500 and 800… Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Straits Settlements and the Second Charter of Justice
In 1826, the East India Company combined its three possessions in the Strait – Penang, Malacca and Singapore – into a single administrative unit, the Straits Settlements. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe reception of English law
The Second Charter did more than establish a court. Read more Singapore · OriginsLand, title and the security of property
A financial centre depends on secure property rights. Land is the most important form of collateral. A mortgage is worth only as much as the title on which it rests. Read more Singapore · OriginsPractical consequences for today’s practitioner
The history examined in this chapter is not merely of antiquarian interest. Several of its consequences confront the practitioner who advises on Singapore matters today. Read more Singapore · OriginsLegal foundations and the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore built their financial centres on different legal traditions. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Treaties of 1824 and the Legal Foundations of British Singapore: summary
The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 17 March 1824 ended the Dutch objection to British Singapore, exchanged Bencoolen for Malacca and drew a border through the Singapore Strait that still separates Singapore… Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Entrepôt Economy: Junks, Country Traders and Merchant Networks
The free port of 1819 created the conditions for trade. The traders themselves came from every direction, bringing their own ships, goods, customs and systems of credit. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe junk trade from the southern Chinese ports
The oldest commercial link of Singapore was the link with China. Chinese junks had sailed to the ports of the Nanyang for centuries, as the first chapter of this part has shown. Read more Singapore · OriginsBugis, Arab, Indian and European traders
The Bugis traders of Sulawesi, who had made Riau prosperous in the eighteenth century, followed a different rhythm. Read more Singapore · OriginsCountry traders and the opium economy
No account of the entrepôt economy can omit opium. In the ports of Southeast Asia, Indian opium was a trade good, a medium of exchange and a source of government revenue. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe hinterland: gambier, pepper and the planter’s credit
The entrepôt did not live from transit trade alone. From its earliest years the island had a plantation economy, run almost entirely by Chinese planters, most of them Teochew. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe agency house as intermediary
The agency house was the central institution of the European commercial community. Its name described its function: it acted as agent for principals elsewhere. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe infrastructure of the entrepôt: river, godowns and information
The physical infrastructure of the early port was simple. Read more Singapore · OriginsCredit chains between Europe, India, China and the archipelago
The entrepôt economy ran on credit. A typical transaction in cotton goods illustrates the chain. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe entrepôt economy and the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore both built their early commercial prosperity on networks of merchants who trusted one another because they belonged to the same community. Read more Singapore · OriginsThe Entrepôt Economy: Junks, Country Traders and Merchant Networks: summary
The entrepôt economy of nineteenth-century Singapore brought together Chinese junk traders, Bugis prahu fleets, Arab and Indian merchant houses and European and Indian country traders, each… Read more Singapore · OriginsClan, 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 EconomyCrown Colony: Government, Courts and Commercial Law after 1867
On 1 April 1867 the Straits Settlements ceased to be a dependency of British India and became a Crown colony, governed from London through the Colonial Office. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe transfer to the Colonial Office in 1867
By the 1850s the merchants of Singapore had accumulated a long list of complaints against the government in Calcutta. The most serious concerned currency. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Legislative Council and the ordinances
The Crown colony was governed by a Governor appointed by the Crown, advised by an Executive Council composed entirely of official members. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCourts, the Privy Council and the legal profession
The transfer was followed by a reorganisation of the courts. The Judicial Duties Act of 1867 created the office of Chief Justice. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCompany law, insolvency and currency
During the first half-century of the settlement, commerce in Singapore was conducted by individuals and partnerships. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyRevenue without customs: the fiscal constitution of the free port
The Crown colony inherited the fiscal model of the free port. It levied no customs duties on general trade and financed itself largely through excise revenue, above all from opium. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe colonial codes in today’s financial crime practice
The Penal Code enacted by the colonial legislature in 1871 is still in force in Singapore today under the title Penal Code 1871, although it has been amended many times. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyLaw as a commercial asset
For the merchants of Singapore, the legal infrastructure of the Crown colony was an asset. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCrown Colony: Government, Courts and Commercial Law after 1867: summary
The merchants of Singapore, frustrated by currency policy, convicts, weak policing and neglect from Calcutta, petitioned in 1857 for Crown rule and obtained it when the Straits Settlements became a… 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 · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar
Singapore has never mined a ton of tin or tapped a commercial rubber estate of any size on its own soil. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe tin boom and the Malayan hinterland
Tin had been worked in the Malay Peninsula for centuries, but the modern industry began with a discovery in the district of Larut, in northern Perak. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyRubber: from botanical experiment to global commodity
Tin had been known in the peninsula for centuries, whereas rubber was a botanical import. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyPrice cycles, speculation and commodity crises
An economy built on two commodities lived with their price cycles. The tin industry experienced its first serious slump in the mid-1870s, just as the Residential system was being established. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Straits dollar and the currency board system
The tin and rubber trades were conducted in silver dollars. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCommodities as the first link to the trading hub
The tin and rubber economies taught Singapore the functions that a commodity hub performs. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar: the comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
Geneva and Singapore reached monetary stability by different routes. Switzerland introduced the Swiss franc by the federal coinage law of 1850 and joined the Latin Monetary Union in 1865. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar: summary
The discovery of tin in Larut in 1848 drew Chinese miners and Straits capital into the western Malay states, whose disorders led to the Pangkor Treaty of 1874, the Residential system and in 1896 the… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation
In November 1869 a new waterway opened between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Suez Canal and the new shipping routes
The Suez Canal was built under French direction and opened in November 1869, after ceremonies that began at Port Said on 15 November. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCoaling station and naval base
Steamships needed coal, deep water and repair facilities, none of which the Singapore River could provide. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe telegraph and the speed of markets
The first attempt to connect Singapore by submarine cable failed. A line laid between Batavia and Singapore in 1859 worked for only a few days. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyMigration, labour and remittances
Steamships carried people as well as goods. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe interwar years and the defence of Singapore
The First World War brought prosperity to Singapore through the demand for tin and rubber, while the fighting itself remained far from the colony. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyPractical consequences: connectivity, chokepoints and confidence
The history of the first globalisation shows that Singapore’s principal asset has always been its connectivity. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation: the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore were transformed by the same technologies at almost the same time. Geneva was linked by rail to Lyon in March 1858 and to the Swiss network via Lausanne in June of that year. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation: summary
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the spread of the compound steam engine made steam the dominant mode of shipping between Europe and Asia, so that steamers overtook sailing ships at… Read more Singapore · IndependenceSyonan-to: Occupation, Currency and the Destruction of Trust
On the evening of 15 February 1942 the British garrison of Singapore surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe fall of Singapore in February 1942
The Japanese attack on Malaya began on 8 December 1941, when the 25th Army landed on the coast of the peninsula. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe occupation economy and its currency
The occupation destroyed the banking system that Chapter B.II describes. Read more Singapore · IndependencePersecution and forced contributions from the Chinese community
The occupation fell hardest on the Chinese community of Singapore and Malaya. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe return of British rule and the currency question
Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945. British forces landed in Penang on 3 September and in Singapore on 5 September 1945, where they were greeted by cheering crowds. Read more Singapore · IndependenceLessons for a centre built on trust
The occupation demonstrated that money is a promise whose value depends on the credibility of the issuer. Read more Singapore · IndependenceComparison: Hong Kong and Geneva
Hong Kong, occupied by Japan from December 1941 to August 1945, offers the closest comparison. There too the local currency was largely replaced by Japanese military notes. Read more Singapore · IndependenceSyonan-to: Occupation, Currency and the Destruction of Trust: summary
Singapore surrendered to Japan on 15 February 1942 and became Syonan-to, a military base whose banks of the Allied powers were closed and whose population was compelled to use unbacked military… Read more Singapore · IndependenceFrom Self-Government to Separation: 1959, 1963, 1965
Between 1946 and 1965 Singapore changed its constitutional status four times. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe postwar colony and the politics of decolonisation
The Straits Settlements, whose constitution as a Crown colony Chapter I of Part B described, did not survive the Second World War. Read more Singapore · IndependenceSelf-government in 1959
The first election under the new constitution took place on 30 May 1959. It was the first general election held with universal suffrage and compulsory voting. Read more Singapore · IndependenceMerger with Malaysia in 1963
The decisive impulse came from Kuala Lumpur when, on 27 May 1961, the Malayan Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, publicly proposed a closer association of Malaya, Singapore and the British Borneo… Read more Singapore · IndependenceSeparation and independence in 1965
The PAP’s campaign for a “Malaysian Malaysia”, in which citizenship would carry equal rights regardless of race, set it against the communal settlement on which the Alliance government rested. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe economic consequences of separation
Separation ended the hope on which the industrial strategy of 1959 had rested. Singapore lost the prospect of a common market of about 12 million people, on which its planners had counted since 1959. Read more Singapore · IndependencePractical consequences: the legal legacy of 1963–1965
The legal technique of 1965 still shapes practice. Read more Singapore · IndependenceComparison with Geneva and Dubai
Geneva’s history offers the closest parallel and the clearest contrast. Read more Singapore · IndependenceFrom Self-Government to Separation: 1959, 1963, 1965: summary
After the Straits Settlements were dissolved on 1 April 1946, Singapore moved through limited elections in 1948, the Rendel Constitution of 1955 and the State of Singapore Act 1958 to full internal… Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Economic Development Board and the Strategy of Survival
In October 1960 a team of experts sent by the United Nations began a survey of a small island whose government had been in office for little more than a year. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe United Nations mission and the founding of the EDB
When the People’s Action Party formed the first fully elected government of self-governing Singapore on 5 June 1959, the city faced conditions that its leaders described as desperate. Read more Singapore · IndependenceIndustrialisation through foreign direct investment
Separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, examined in Chapter II of this part, removed the premise of the early strategy. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe withdrawal of British forces
On 18 July 1967 the British government announced that it would withdraw its forces from Singapore and Malaysia by the mid-1970s, because the British economy could no longer bear the cost of… Read more Singapore · IndependenceLabour, land and the instruments of the state
The industrial relations that Winsemius feared had deep roots. In 1955 Singapore recorded 275 strikes involving 57,000 workers and a loss of 946,000 man-days. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe state as architect of markets
The institutional legacy of the 1960s is a dense network of statutory boards and government-linked companies. Most of the state and semi-state enterprises were founded between 1968 and 1972. Read more Singapore · IndependencePractical consequences for investors and their advisers
For a company considering a significant investment in Singapore, the EDB remains the first point of contact. Its officers present the location, coordinate with other agencies and negotiate incentives. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Economic Development Board and the Strategy of Survival: Comparison with Geneva
Geneva never had an Economic Development Board. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Economic Development Board and the Strategy of Survival: summary
The Economic Development Board, established on 1 August 1961 on the recommendation of a United Nations mission led by Albert Winsemius, was the instrument through which the government of… Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe 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 · IndependenceThe Founding of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
On 1 January 1971 a new statutory body opened its doors in Singapore. Read more Singapore · IndependenceMonetary functions before 1971
Singapore entered independence with a monetary system inherited from the colonial period. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Monetary Authority of Singapore Act 1970
The legislation came before Parliament in 1970, in a session that also dealt with the reform of banking law. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Board of Commissioners of Currency
The Board of Commissioners of Currency, Singapore operated under the Currency Act 1967. Read more Singapore · IndependenceExchange-rate-centred monetary policy
The Authority was born in turbulent times for the international monetary system. In August 1971, months after it opened, the United States suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. Read more Singapore · IndependenceSupervisory philosophy: prudence and reputation
The supervisory approach of the young Authority was shaped by its lack of a track record. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Founding of the Monetary Authority of Singapore: practical consequences
For institutions and their advisers, the founding design of the Authority has lasting consequences. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Founding of the Monetary Authority of Singapore: the comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
Switzerland followed a sequence that reverses Singapore's. Read more Singapore · IndependenceThe Founding of the Monetary Authority of Singapore: summary
Before 1971 the functions of a central bank in Singapore were scattered across a currency board and several departments, an arrangement that Goh Keng Swee called “an untidy system of units” and that… Read more Singapore · Global CentreState Capital: CPF, Temasek and GIC
Few financial centres are shaped as strongly by the savings of their own state as Singapore. Every working citizen and permanent resident pays a share of wages into the Central Provident Fund. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Central Provident Fund
The Central Provident Fund grew out of a debate of the early 1950s about how to provide for workers in old age. Read more Singapore · Global CentreTemasek Holdings
By the early 1970s the government owned stakes in a wide range of enterprises created during the industrialisation drive of the 1960s, which Chapter C.III describes. Read more Singapore · Global CentreGIC and the management of reserves
GIC owes its existence to the persistent surpluses of the 1970s. Read more Singapore · Global CentreGovernance, transparency and the Santiago Principles
The protection of the reserves is written into the Constitution. Read more Singapore · Global CentreState capital as anchor of the financial centre
The most direct contribution of state capital to the financial centre has been through mandates to external managers. Read more Singapore · Global CentrePractical consequences for asset managers, banks and advisers
For practitioners, Singapore’s state capital is first a set of counterparties. Asset managers seek mandates from GIC and Temasek. Read more Singapore · Global CentreSingapore and Geneva: state capital and private wealth
The contrast with Switzerland could hardly be sharper. Switzerland has no sovereign wealth fund in the sense of GIC or Temasek. Read more Singapore · Global CentreState Capital: CPF, Temasek and GIC: summary
The Central Provident Fund, launched on 1 July 1955 as a compulsory savings scheme, became after 1968 the instrument through which Singapore financed home ownership, health care and retirement,… 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 CentreThe Asian Financial Crisis of 1997
Financial centres are tested in crises. Their institutions, their banks and their currencies reveal in a few months of turmoil the strengths and weaknesses that years of growth had hidden. Read more Singapore · Global CentreOrigins of the crisis in the region
The economies of Southeast Asia had grown rapidly for a decade before 1997. Read more Singapore · Global CentreSingapore's exposure and resilience
Singapore was hurt less than its neighbours, as the Deputy Prime Minister and chairman of MAS, Lee Hsien Loong, explained in Tokyo in September 1998. Read more Singapore · Global CentreMonetary and fiscal responses
Singapore conducts monetary policy through the exchange rate, managing the Singapore dollar against a trade-weighted basket of currencies within a policy band. Read more Singapore · Global CentreRegional consequences for banking and trade
The crisis exposed a weakness of the local banks that had little to do with their regional loans. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe crisis as a turning point for strategy
The most important consequence of the crisis for Singapore was strategic. Paradoxically, the review of financial sector policy had begun before the crisis reached Singapore. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Asian Financial Crisis of 1997: practical consequences
The crisis of 1997 remains relevant for those who use Singapore as a financial centre today. Read more Singapore · Global CentreComparison with Hong Kong and Geneva
Hong Kong faced the same crisis with a different monetary regime. Its currency board, which links the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar, left no room for depreciation. Read more Singapore · Global CentreThe Asian Financial Crisis of 1997: summary
The Asian financial crisis began with the floating of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997 and spread through Southeast Asia and Korea, causing output to collapse in the most affected economies in 1998. 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 · AnnexesAnnex I: Chronology
The chronology lists the principal dates in the history of Singapore as a place of trade and finance, from the first Chinese and Javanese records of Temasek in the fourteenth century to the autumn… Read more Singapore · AnnexesOrigins: From Temasek to the Free Port (c. 1330–1866)
Origins: From Temasek to the Free Port (c. 1330–1866): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesColony and Commerce (1867–1942)
Colony and Commerce (1867–1942): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesWar, Independence and the Developmental State (1942–1971)
War, Independence and the Developmental State (1942–1971): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesBuilding a Global Financial Centre (1971–2008)
Building a Global Financial Centre (1971–2008): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesContemporary Wealth Management and Private Banking (2009–2026)
Contemporary Wealth Management and Private Banking (2009–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesInternational Singapore: Law, Disputes and Diplomacy (1952–2026)
International Singapore: Law, Disputes and Diplomacy (1952–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesThe Commodity Trading Hub (1892–2026)
The Commodity Trading Hub (1892–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesTrade Finance, Fraud and Risk (1978–2026)
Trade Finance, Fraud and Risk (1978–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesGateway to Asia (1967–2026)
Gateway to Asia (1967–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesLanguage as Infrastructure: English and Bilingualism (1823–2026)
Language as Infrastructure: English and Bilingualism (1823–2026): a section of the book. Read more Singapore · AnnexesSingapore 2035: Technology, Sustainability and Geopolitics (1990–2026)
Singapore 2035: Technology, Sustainability and Geopolitics (1990–2026): a section of the book. Read more