We thank Mr Dharmendra Yadav for his feedback, (“Government bodies also have a fair-dealing role”, 12 September 2019).

On 6 September, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL) launched the pilot initiative of the Payments Regulatory Evaluation Programme (PREP). To create the documents necessary to launch the pilot and fine-tune the documents during this time, MAS worked with a smaller group of law firms which are familiar with the payments industry. This group of firms were selected from respondents to MAS’ consultations on payments regulations or firms that engaged in payments infrastructure projects. The group represents a cross section of the legal industry comprising international law firms, large local law firms, and smaller boutique law firms. The PREP information sheet published on SAL’s website stated that MAS and SAL do not in any way endorse the firms listed in the schedule. Indeed, the programme is open to all law firms to join.

MAS and SAL are heartened to have received strong interest from the legal industry to join the programme during the pilot. Following this, we have already invited all interested law firms to join the pilot on 10 September. There are currently at least 49 law firms on the list of legal advisors. These are Singapore Law Practices which are allowed to provide Singapore law-related services under Singapore’s Legal Profession Act.

We hope that this initiative will help payment firms access legal services to support them in their business easily and quickly. 

Jerome Lee (Mr)

Director (Corporate Communications)

Monetary Authority of Singapore

Foo Kim Leng (Ms)

Deputy Director (Corporate Communications)