Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses
Money-changing and remittance businesses are licensed and governed under the Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses Act.
Money-changing involves the buying and selling of foreign currency notes and may be conducted under a sole proprietorship, partnership or company. The money-changing licensees are expected to put in place an appropriate system, including the reporting of suspicious transactions, to help prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. They are required to keep complete records of all their transactions and perform relevant customer due diligence measures for transaction amounts of S$5,000 and above.
The holder of a remittance licence has to be incorporated as a company with a minimum capital of S$100,000 and furnish a security deposit of S$100,000 in respect of its place of business. With the different remittance channels including banks, offering remittance services, customers are expected to exercise discretion in choosing their remittance channel for the transmission of funds overseas. Besides putting in place an effective system, including the reporting of suspicious transactions, to help prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, the remittance licensees are required to maintain complete records of all their transactions and perform relevant customer due diligence measures for every remittance transaction.
MAS supervises the money-changing and remittance licensees primarily for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism purposes.
For the latest list and number of money-changing and remittance licensees in Singapore, please refer to the Financial Institutions Directory.
If you have information to suspect that an individual or a company is conducting or advertising to conduct money-changing or remittance business without a valid money-changer’s or remittance licence respectively, you can call (65)-6225-5577 or write to the Technology Risk and Payments Department of MAS at webmaster@mas.gov.sg or Monetary Authority of Singapore, MAS Building, 10 Shenton Way, Singapore 079117.