Singapore, 30 September 2002. The official merger of the Board of Commissioners of Currency, Singapore (BCCS) with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will take effect from 1 October 2002. The combined entity will still be called MAS. The merger does not affect the legal tender of all notes and coins issued by BCCS.

Currency service will continue as usual and will be provided by the new Currency Department in MAS located at Currency House. Mr. Ho Kwen Chan, Executive Director, heads the department. The address and contact numbers of the Currency Department in MAS is as follows-

Monetary Authority of Singapore
Currency Department
MAS Currency House
109 Pasir Panjang Road,
Singapore 118536.
Tel: 6225 5577
Fax: 6349 4700
E-mail: webmaster@mas.gov.sg
URL: /

Official Business Hours:Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 4.45pm (Saturday up to 1.00 pm)
Lunch time:12pm to 12.46pm 


 

All BCCS staff will be absorbed into MAS.

Background

BCCS was set up in 1967 to implement the currency board system, which Singapore then practiced. Under this system:

  the exchange rate was fixed between the domestic and a specified foreign currency;

  Singapore notes and coins were fully convertible at this fixed exchange rates; and

  the Singapore currency was fully backed by external assets or gold.

However Singapore has progressively evolved away from a fixed exchange rate system and no longer operates a currency board arrangement. The Singapore dollar was floated in 1973. In 1982, convertibility of domestic currency notes and coins into gold and other foreign currencies on demand was repealed. Today the exchange rate of the Singapore dollar is managed by MAS, against a basket of currencies of our main trading partners, with the objective of keeping inflation low and maintaining the purchasing power of the Singapore dollar.

The purpose of the merger is to streamline the institutional structure and also enable MAS to rationalise common functions and bring about efficiency gains, without compromising the overriding objective of managing currency and maintaining confidence in the Singapore dollar.

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