International Cooperation for Green Finance
United Kingdom and Singapore Financial Partnership
30 June 2021
The UK and Singapore announced the launch of a new Financial Partnership at the 6th UK-Singapore Financial Dialogue. Under the partnership, the UK and Singapore will explore opportunities for greater financial cooperation, including in green finance and carbon markets.
United States-Singapore Climate Partnership
23 August 2021
United States (US) and Singapore announced a partnership to strengthen collaboration on climate action, environmental governance, sustainable development, and low-carbon solutions. Under the partnership, MAS carried out two bilateral expert consultations with US counterparts on a range of sustainable finance topics, including the mobilisation of private capital for sustainable infrastructure.
- MFA media release, published on 23 Aug 2021, on official visit of Vice President of the United States of America Kamala D. Harris, 22 to 24 August 2021
(See Appendix II – Media factsheet on United States-Singapore Climate Partnership)
Financial Times Investing for Good Asia Digital Conference
8 September 2021
MAS Managing Director Mr Ravi Menon shared the challenges of scaling up green finance, and how the three “D” s – data, definition, and disclosure – are needed to make green finance work effectively. Mr Menon also announced the establishment of the Sustainable and Green Finance Institute as the third centres of excellence for training and research on green finance.
China International Finance Society Annual Conference
7 December 2021
MAS Deputy Managing Director Mr Leong Sing Chiong spoke at the China International Finance Society Annual Conference, where he shared about the growth of Asia, how Asia can transition towards a low carbon future, and how we can support digitalisation.
Ravi Menon appointed Chair of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)
17 January 2022
MAS Managing Director Mr Ravi Menon was appointed Chair of the NGFS for a two-year term. NGFS comprises a voluntary grouping of 116 central banks and supervisors, to expand and strengthen the global efforts towards greening the financial system. NGFS’ efforts are focused on improving the resilience of the financial system to climate-related and environmental risks, and encouraging the scaling up of the financing flows needed to support the transition towards a sustainable economy. To this end, NGFS defines and promotes best practices to be implemented within and outside the membership of the NGFS, and conducts or commissions analytical work on green finance.
- Managing Director of MAS and Chair of the NGFS Ravi Menon’s speech “Gearing Up for Climate Action - The Road Ahead for the NGFS”, delivered on 31 May 2022, at the Green Swan Conference 2022
- MAS media release, published on 17 January 2022, on Ravi Menon’s appointment as Chair of the Network for Greening the Financial System
Singapore and Indonesia sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning cooperation on climate change and sustainability
21 March 2022
The MoU will further strengthen the bilateral relationship and cooperation in climate change and sustainability efforts. MAS will work with corresponding Indonesian agencies on areas such as green and blended finance solutions.
MAS collaborated with regulatory counterparts in global fora to deepen analysis and oversight of environmental risk
Ongoing
As a founding member of the NGFS, MAS has been leading initiatives to integrate climate-related and environmental risks into micro-prudential supervision. These efforts culminated in the issuance of a Progress report on the NGFS’ Guide for Supervisors that highlighted the progress made by supervisors in the integration of climate-related and environmental risks in their supervisory activities, a Report on the progress in capturing Climate-related Risk Differentials, and further development of the NGFS’ training programme for supervisors. MAS is also involved in other work at the NGFS to develop climate scenarios, scale up green finance, bridge data gaps, and advance research priorities including in nature-related risks.
MAS is participating in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s (BCBS) Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Risks, which has published analytical reports on transmission channels and measurement methodologies of such risks. MAS is co-leading the supervision workstream, which has published the consultation on principles for the effective management and supervision of climate-related financial risks which ended in February 2022. The principles will be finalised in June 2022. MAS is also involved in work at the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which is reviewing the regulatory and supervisory approaches to address climate risks and assessing the availability of data through which climate-related risks to financial stability could be monitored.
As part of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Sustainable Finance Task Force (STF), MAS co-led a Technical Expert Group (TEG) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to inform IOSCO’s potential endorsement of global baseline sustainability-related disclosure standards to be issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). MAS actively participates in the Technical Review Coordination Group (TRC), which continues the TEG’s work, and leads the review of the climate disclosure draft standard. MAS also worked on three IOSCO STF reports published in 2021 on improving sustainability-related issuer disclosures, improving sustainability-related practices of asset managers, and understanding the increasingly important role of ESG ratings and data providers.
- Managing Director of MAS Ravi Menon’s speech "What We Need to Do to Make Green Finance Work", delivered on 8 September 2021, at the Financial Times Investing for Good Asia digital conference
- Assistant Managing Director of MAS Lim Tuang Lee’s remarks, delivered on 21 June 2021, at the panel on “Financial Services Post-COVID: Addressing Emerging Risks”