Types of Deposit-Taking Institutions

Deposit-taking institutions in Singapore comprise full banks, wholesale banks, merchant banks and finance companies. Find out about the types of institutions and their permitted activities.

Full Banks

Full banks are licensed under and governed by the Banking Act .

Full banks may undertake universal banking, including the following activities:

  • Deposit taking.
  • Cheque services and lending.
  • Any other businesses regulated or authorised by MAS, including financial advisory services, insurance broking and capital market services.

Full banks are prohibited from engaging in non-financial activities. Section 30 of the Banking Act defines the permissible activities.

Note: Banks and their representatives do not have to be separately licensed to carry out such activities, but must comply with the business conduct requirements prescribed in the Financial Advisers Act (FAA) , Insurance Act (IA) and Securities and Futures Act (SFA) .

Regulations: For more details on requirements, see the regulations for Full Bank (Locally Incorporated) and Full Bank (Branch).

Qualifying Full Banks

Foreign full banks with Qualifying Full Bank (QFB) privileges may operate a total of 25 locations. They may also:

  • Share ATMs among themselves, and relocate their sub-branches freely.
  • Negotiate with the local banks on a commercial basis to let their credit card holders obtain cash. advances through the local bank's ATM networks.
  • Provide debit services through an EFTPOS network.
  • Offer Supplementary Retirement Scheme and CPF Investment Scheme accounts.
  • Accept fixed deposits under the CPF Investment Scheme and CPF Retirement Sum Scheme .

Wholesale Banks

Wholesale banks are licensed under and governed by the Banking Act . Wholesale banks may engage in the same range of banking business as full banks, except that they do not carry out Singapore dollar retail banking activities.

They are prohibited from engaging in non-financial activities. Section 30 of the Banking Act defines the permissible activities.

Wholesale banks operate within the Guidelines for Operations of Wholesale Banks.

Regulations: For more details on requirements, see the regulations for Wholesale Bank (Locally Incorporated) and Wholesale Bank (Branch).

Merchant Banks

Merchant banks are licensed under and governed by the Banking Act . Section 55V of the Banking Act defines the permissible activities.

Regulations: For more details on requirements, see regulations for Merchant Bank (Locally Incorporated) and Merchant Bank (Branch).

Finance Companies

Finance companies are licensed under and governed by the Finance Companies Act .

Their activities include:

  • Deposit taking.
  • Lending to individuals and corporations including SMEs.

Regulations: For more details on requirements, see finance company regulations.

For the full list of financial institutions in Singapore, see the Financial Institutions Directory.