No Plans To Change Banking Secrecy Laws: MAS

Source : The Sunday Times, Oct 14, 2007

SINGAPORE has refuted a foreign media report last week that it was changing its banking secrecy laws to address concerns that it was a money laundering haven.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was commenting on a Dow Jones Newswire report on Thursday that said Singapore was looking into changing its laws in a bid to seal a trade agreement with the European Union (EU).

The report quoted Mr Glyn Ford, a member of the European Parliament, as saying that Singapore's Members of Parliament had told their counterparts from the EU during talks last week that the Republic was planning 'legislative changes'.

Dow Jones said Singapore was considering the changes to 'remove the tag' of it being a 'potential haven of suspicious money from launderers and terrorists'.

In a statement yesterday, an MAS spokesman said the allegation that Singapore was such a haven for suspicious money was baseless.

The spokesman said Singapore's laws on banking confidentiality provide bank customers the right to confidentiality of information, but do not shield criminal activity.

'We operate a rigorous regime against money laundering and financing of terrorism which is benchmarked against international standards. We have no plans to change these laws, contrary to the report,' said the spokesman.

Mr Zainudin Nordin, an MP and chairman of the Singapore-Europe regional parliamentary group, who headed the Singapore delegation, also refuted the Dow Jones report. He told The Sunday Times yesterday: 'At no time did we talk about the banking secrecy laws.'

He said the two parties discussed developments in Singapore's financial sector and the EU team did raise concerns that Singapore's banking policy did not meet some of their criteria for the trade pact.

'We said that we would highlight their concerns to the relevant authorities in Singapore,' said Mr Zainudin.

In the Dow Jones report, Mr Ford said that 'the one stumbling block' in reaching an agreement is 'over banking secrecy'. The European Commission has been negotiating a trade agreement with Singapore since 2005.

But the MAS said the 'so-called 'stumbling block'... relates to the question of withholding tax on customer savings'.

The spokesman said 'the Singapore Constitution does not allow us to collect taxes on behalf of a foreign country'.

'This is an altogether different issue from the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.'