SINGAPORE – Singapore’s anti-money-laundering regime is sound, with banks having invested heavily in anti-fraud technology since the global financial crisis, said DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta, although no system can be 100 per cent foolproof.
Property agents, precious metals dealers and golf clubs here have also been drawn into the scandal, raising questions about the guardrails against illicit money flowing into one of the world’s most important financial hubs. As banks are expected to be the “global policeman”, technology is used to help check for sanctions, terrorism financing and money laundering.
“If you have a good police force, you should have zero crime in the country, but no country can achieve zero crime. He believes the property market has been driven by “home-grown demand”, such as people seeking to upgrade from public housing to private properties in the million-dollar bracket, and not foreign demand.