Singapore wants to bolster its status as a wealth management and foreign-exchange center as part of plans to create more financial-sector jobs and mitigate the effect of rapid changes in technology.
In a plan unveiled yesterday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said it aims to create 4,000 net new jobs in financial services and financial technology, and achieve real growth in the sector of 4.3 percent annually, faster than the overall economy.
“With technology transforming the way financial services are produced, delivered and consumed, it is critical that Singapore’s financial sector also transforms, to stay relevant and competitive,” the agency said in a statement.
Banks around the world are cutting jobs as the industry is transformed by digital technology, and the application of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc, has predicted that about 30 percent of banking jobs could disappear over the next five years.
The agency said Singapore aims to be a leading international wealth management hub, adding that it is working with the industry to develop Singapore as a “center of excellence for wealth management technology and innovation.”
The agency said it wants to develop Singapore, the world’s third-largest foreign-exchange center, into a global foreign-exchange price discovery and liquidity center in the Asian time zone.
It would encourage key participants to “anchor their matching and pricing engines here, to enable market participants to benefit from better liquidity and greater efficiency in executing FX [foreign exchange] transactions,” the agency said.
Singapore is projecting a 4.3 percent annual growth rate for the financial sector through 2020, higher than the planned overall economic growth of 2 percent to 3 percent included in a set of national strategies unveiled in February.
The financial sector accounts for about 13 percent of Singapore’s GDP and employs about 200,000 people.
Assets under management grew 7 percent last year to S$2.7 trillion (US$1.9 trillion), according to agency data published in September.
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