The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today announced a S$125 million support package to sustain and strengthen capabilities in the financial services and FinTech sectors amid the current economic slump. The support package will help to position financial institutions (FIs) and FinTech firms for stronger growth when the threat of COVID-19 recedes and economic activity normalises.
The support package, funded by the Financial Sector Development Fund, has three main components:
• supporting workforce training and manpower costs;
• strengthening digitalisation and operational resilience; and
• enhancing FinTech firms’ access to digital platforms and tools.
The support package will take effect today.
MAS will launch a new Training Allowance Grant (TAG) to encourage FIs and FinTech firms to make use of the downtime in business activity, to train and deepen the capabilities of their employees. The TAG will also be available to support Singapore Citizens (SCs) and Permanent Residents (PRs) outside of the financial services and FinTech sectors. The TAG will supplement the Jobs Support Scheme announced in the Resilience and Solidarity Budgets, by providing training allowances for completing training in courses accredited by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF).
More than 400 IBFaccredited courses are available on e-learning channels and plans are underway to expand such virtual offerings to meet training needs under the current climate of safe distancing.
MAS will double the salary support for FIs to hire SC fresh graduates or workers from other sectors and place them in talent development programmes under the Finance Associate Management Scheme (FAMS). FAMS is a talent development tool to help groom Singaporeans for future specialist and management roles in the financial services industry through structured programmes offered by FIs. Strengthening Digitalisation and Operational Resilience (S$35 million)/
7 MAS will set up a new Digital Acceleration Grant (DAG) to support digitalisation in smaller FIs and FinTech firms. The DAG will help these firms adopt digital solutions to strengthen operational resilience, process efficiency, risk management and customer service. This will include the adoption of digital tools and upgrading of systems that facilitate business continuity (e.g. document collaboration solutions and virtual conferencing systems).
