The UK and Singapore will collaborate on sustainable finance, Fintech Innovation

The United Kingdom (UK) and Singapore have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the Fintech Bridge between the UK and Singapore on Friday.

At the 7th UK-Singapore Financial Dialogue, both countries discussed their shared interests in sustainable finance as well as fintech and innovation.

Sustainable finance

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There are four areas of sustainable finance that the UK and Singapore have agreed to work on – the first being transition finance.

The UK and Singapore recognized the importance of transition plans and pathways to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels.

As a first step, the two countries agreed to work with partners such as the UK Transition Plan Taskforce and the Singapore-based Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) Asia Pacific office to drive international consistency in the design and publication of transition plans.

The second focus area will be the implementation of disclosure standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Both countries also undertake to phase in mandatory climate-related financial information that provides consistent, comparable and decision-making information for market players and financial authorities.

The third focus area for both countries will be to combat greenwashing, including in relation to sustainability disclosures and sustainable investment products.

Both regulators will continue to discuss how to adopt a coordinated approach to regulatory oversight of ESG ratings and data product providers, based on International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) recommendations.

In addition, the UK and Singapore will explore further collaboration opportunities in Project Greenprint.

Finally, both countries want to form a globally consistent framework for nature-related disclosures and exchanged views on how the efforts of the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) can contribute to the ISSB’s global baseline.

They agreed to work together to build capacity and understanding of the potential for nature loss and degradation to generate economic risk and cause adverse business and community impacts.

Fintech and innovation

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Broen seeks to support continued growth, investment and technological innovation by building on active interest from fintech players in the areas of payments, regtech and wealth management.

Apart from that, both countries also shared their latest assessments of market developments, opportunities, trends and long-term expectations for the crypto-asset sector.

They also discussed risks and challenges related to financial stability, regulatory arbitrage, and shared their progress in strengthening consumer protection rules and developing the regulation of stablecoins.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been actively seeking to take a more comprehensive approach to crypto regulations to include consumer protection and aims to consult on proposed measures in the coming months.

Both countries said they will continue to actively participate in shaping robust global regulatory practices through engagement in international multilateral forums such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and IOSCO.

E-wallets and digital banking were also a central topic of discussion for both countries during the dialogue.

Singapore provided updates on the progress of its e-wallet cap review and anticipated next steps. Both countries discussed the newly released consultation, with the UK giving views on the main proposals.

Besides, Singapore also shared updates on the new digital banks that recently launched their operations in the island state – Trust Bank, Grab-Singtel digital bank consortium GXS, Ant’s ANEXT Bank and Green Link Digital Bank (GLDB).