MAS Releases Guidelines for Money Market Funds

Singapore, 1 July 1999... The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today issued a set of regulatory guidelines for money market funds sold to retail investors in Singapore.

Money market funds are specialised unit trusts that invest primarily in high-quality, liquid and short-dated money market instruments and debt securities. They increase the variety of unit trusts managed and sold in Singapore, and provide more choice to those who wish to invest through professionally-managed funds.

The guidelines give guidance to managers of money market funds on what instruments and securities they can invest in, and on the marketing of such funds to the public. They have been formulated after taking into account international best practice and feedback from the fund management industry.

Existing money market funds are given 6 months to comply with the guidelines.

The guidelines are incorporated in new sections 4.2, 5A and 5.2.3 of the Handbook on Unit Trusts. The transitional provisions for existing money market funds can be found in Practice Direction No. 7 to the Handbook, which is also issued today. Consequential amendments have been made to Practice Directions No. 2 and 5 to the Handbook.

A copy of the revised Handbook and Practice Direction No. 7 can be obtained from the MAS web-site.