Mr Janadas Devan,
Mr Piyush Gupta,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
Introduction
1. A very good afternoon. It is a pleasure to join you for the launch of Mr Piyush Gupta’s book – “Singapore’s Financial Sector: How Did We Arrive, How Do We Thrive?”
2. The book is based on the three IPS lectures that Piyush delivered in 2025 on the evolution of Singapore’s financial sector; how new technologies have redrawn the financial landscape; and how Singapore can remain relevant as a global financial hub.
3. Besides being an outstanding corporate leader in the financial services industry, Piyush is also a deep thinker who has shared his insights on a range of topics including technology and business transformation.
4. Under his leadership, DBS, that he led previously, was named the World’s Best Bank and Best Digital Bank on several occasions, and one of the most transformative organisations of the decade by Harvard Business Review in 2019.
5. Beyond DBS, Piyush helped shape Singapore's post-COVID economic strategy as a member of the Singapore Emerging Stronger Taskforce, and supported the development of our financial centre through his contributions on the MAS’ Financial Centre Advisory Panel.
6. He is therefore very well-placed and very well-qualified to share his perspectives on the choices, institutional discipline and spirit of innovation that made Singapore a leading financial centre in Asia.
7. The book explains the journey from the perspective of someone who has lived through it.
8. A central theme is how Singapore's long-term success depends on continuously balancing innovation with trust and stability while constantly reinventing ourselves ahead of major shifts in global finance. We change during good times before the changes are forced upon us, and that is how we stay ahead of the curve.
9. Singapore’s success did not happen by chance. It comes down to our strong rule of law, institutional credibility and regulatory clarity which create an ecosystem that supports innovation and enables sustainable growth.
10. This model has served Singapore well through the decades. Global companies and investors choose to invest through Singapore into the region. They have placed their trust and confidence in Singapore’s financial institutions and the regulatory environment by MAS and other agencies.
11. This book tells the story of reinvention and the future of finance.
12. Some of us may remember that we opened our first POSB savings account during a time when banking was still a physical experience: we had passbooks, we had counters, we queued up to see the friendly bank teller at the counter.
13. But for the younger members in the audience, today’s finance is a different thing – it is embedded in your mobile devices, platforms and maybe soon your AI agents, but the fundamental need for trust and innovation remains the same.
14. The task before us is clear. For MAS, this includes efforts to keep innovating together with our industry partners, trying new ideas, implementing these well, and maintaining our hallmark of trust and stability. We can therefore build on our reputation as a strong financial centre, something which has been established over decades of hard work, and we strive to achieve greater heights in the years ahead.
Reflections
15. These values continue to drive our actions today. Let me give you two examples. Over the past two years, we have worked closely with our industry to strengthen Singapore’s equities market. We are encouraged by the early results and positive momentum generated, but we know that much more work remains ahead. This experience has reinforced two important lessons.
16. The first is to be open to new ideas and possibilities. Many of the most useful insights during this review came from our industry leaders, because they are people who are closest to the market and they are people who have a good understanding of where the opportunities and challenges are.
a) During the Equities Market Review, we consulted widely across the capital markets ecosystem, including investors, business leaders, and many other market participants. Their perspectives helped us challenge our prevailing thinking and develop practical recommendations that can help strengthen Singapore's equities ecosystem.
17. The second lesson is that we must be prepared to take some calculated risks when we are seeking new opportunities. Not every challenge or endeavour will come with an established playbook or a clear roadmap. Sometimes, we need to be willing to test new ideas and approaches, and accept some failures along the way. We may not always succeed when we try, as some of the ideas may not work as intended. But what we are quite clear is that if we don’t try, then our chance of success will be zero. So this is the mindset that guided the Review Group’s work.
a) Take for example the Global Listing Board — something that we innovated, and made a bold move to amend our Securities and Futures Act and our listing rules to reduce friction for companies to then be able to use one set of prospectus to list simultaneously on Nasdaq and on SGX.
b) The Equity Markets Development Programme (EQDP) - we started with $5 billion, PM during Budget added another $1.5 billion, so we have a total of $6.5 billion - this is another carefully-designed initiative, which at the start, we were not certain whether this would work as intended. Happy to see the interest it has since generated among asset managers, and its early success of catalysing third-party capital alongside MAS’ seed funding. This would not have been possible, be it the EQDP or the Global Listing Board, if MAS and our industry partners collectively were not prepared to take some calculated risks.
18. We are now applying these same principles to another important area: how to strengthen Singapore’s growth capital ecosystem. What we want to do is to foster a financing ecosystem that can support entrepreneurs and enterprises through various growth stages, from start-up to growth to pre-IPO. These would include both local and overseas entrepreneurs and enterprises.
19. Achieving this vision will require close partnership between the public and private sectors. Many of the challenges we are addressing, whether strengthening funding pathways for growth companies, or expanding exit options for investors, they do not have simple solutions. There is really no silver bullet.
20. Through the Growth Capital Workgroup, which we have set up together with the industry, we brought together participants from across venture capital, private equity, private credit, infrastructure financing and asset management, to examine how we can strengthen the growth capital ecosystem. Ideas have been surfaced, and these include supporting innovative financing solutions, reviewing certain regulatory requirements as well as talent and other ecosystem enablers. We will continue to listen closely to these perspectives, to remain open to new ideas, and importantly, at the end we must have the courage to take some calculated risks and make some decisions on what we want to do going forward.
21. These are, in many ways, similar to the qualities that Piyush highlighted in his book. To build an ecosystem which encourages entrepreneurship and to infuse a stronger spirit of enterprise in our economy, including in our regulatory agencies and amongst our public service officers.
22. This is not easy to achieve, but it is important and it is worth doing. And I believe it can make a difference to how we can continue to grow Singapore’s economy and create more good jobs for our people in the years ahead.
Conclusion
23. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to conclude. This book has relevance to multiple audiences. Financial industry professionals will appreciate its deep insights; thought leaders and policymakers will appreciate its principles; and future generations of Singaporeans will gain a better understanding of how our financial sector grew and developed, and how they too can contribute to its further growth.
24. Congratulations once again to Piyush and thank you very much for sharing with us your valuable experiences, your deep insights, and perhaps most importantly, your can-do spirit and your contagious optimism about Singapore's future.
25. Thank you.
