Singapore’s Private Banking Industry Group, which includes the city-state’s central bank and large lenders, rejected a report that it sought to silence discussions about the origin of wealth inflows into the Southeast Asian nation.
(Bloomberg) — Singapore’s Private Banking Industry Group, which includes the city-state’s central bank and large lenders, rejected a report that it sought to silence discussions about the origin of wealth inflows into the Southeast Asian nation.
“The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has not issued any directive to banks – tacit or otherwise – to avoid discussing the origins of wealth inflows into Singapore,” the group said on Friday, referring to an earlier report in the Financial Times.
According to the FT, at a meeting on Feb. 20, MAS asked the city’s top banks “to avoid discussing the origins of the significant sums of money flowing into the city over the past year.” That was seen as a move aimed at the “politically sensitive” issue of Chinese funds, the report said, citing three people familiar with the discuss who it didn’t identify.
MAS didn’t refer directly to China by name, according to the FT, but the remarks were interpreted as referring to it.
In its statement Friday evening, the banking group said that, at the Feb. 20 meeting, “the PBIG noted that while public commentary tended to focus on fund flows from China into Singapore, the sources of overall inflows into Singapore in fact remain diversified. The increased fund flows into Singapore were from high net-worth individuals from different markets.”
The Private Banking Industry Group is made up of representatives from MAS and banks with operations in Singapore. It is currently co-chaired by MAS and UBS Group AG, and includes officials from Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, DBS Group Holdings and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
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