The latest compliance news: regulatory developments, punishments, guidance, permissions and authorisations for new product and service offerings.

Monetary Authority of Singapore
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has published a consultation paper about proposals to enable a wider range of fund types – covering “alternative” areas – to be offered to retail clients via a streamlined process.

The central bank and regulator is seeking feedback on proposed changes to the Code on Collective Investment Schemes. 

The proposals are being issued at a time when several jurisdictions, such as the US, the European Union and the UK, have created new structures to enable retail/mass-affluent investors to gain access to areas such as private equity, but in a measured way. (Such moves have encountered controversy.) As more firms choose not to float on stock markets, or de-list, there is concern that ordinary investors will be frozen out of investments that offer higher returns – particularly pertinent as the public is put under more pressure to save for retirement.

MAS said that as investors become more sophisticated in Singapore, it has been told that the asset management sector is interested in offering new types of retail fund products that cater to a broader range of investment objectives. Existing funds may not fit the CIS Code’s guidelines.

Amendments would allow existing investment requirements to be adjusted, as well as offering a wider range of innovative fund types, MAS said in a 9 July statement.

MAS said a “new Alternative Funds Appendix is proposed to cater to innovative fund types, to clearly differentiate them from traditional funds.”

Such fund types will come with “guardrails” to safeguard retail investors’ interests, MAS said.

Responses to proposals are welcomed and must be sent in by 10 August.