Singapore Pushes Digibanks in Face of China, U.S. Crackdown

  • Financial regulator to award digital bank licenses by year end
  • Chinese regulations to create a level playing field: MAS head
WATCH: Monetary Authority of Singapore MD Ravi Menon says tightening scrutiny hitting Chinese fintech applicants such as Ant Group or Bytedance will not have an impact on its plans for digital banking license issuance.(Source: Bloomberg)
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Singapore’s financial regulator will stick with its plans to award digital banking licenses by the end of the year, undeterred by tightening scrutiny in China and the U.S. that’s hitting major Chinese applicants.

“Regulatory tightening that’s happening in China will not have an impact on the digital banks here,” Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in an interview ahead of Singapore’s annual fintech festival that starts Dec. 7. “It’s not our job to try to guess what the geopolitical situation might be like, what actions might be taken by other countries with respect to some of these entities.”