Singapore: MAS to bolster defence against money laundering and terrorism financing with COSMIC platform

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Monday launched COSMIC (Collaborative Sharing of Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) Information & Cases), the primary centralised digital platform to facilitate sharing of buyer info amongst monetary establishments (FIs) to fight money laundering (ML), terrorism financing (TF) and proliferation financing (PF) globally, an official news release said.

The Financial Services and Markets (Amendment) Act 2023 and accompanying subsidiary laws, which set out the authorized foundation and safeguards for such sharing, commenced on the identical day.

Following public session in October 2021, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022 (FSMA) was amended in May 2023 to set out the legislative framework for COSMIC.

COSMIC will allow FIs to warn one another of suspicious actions and make extra knowledgeable threat assessments on a well timed foundation. It enhances the business’s current shut collaboration with MAS and regulation enforcement authorities to fight monetary crime. This will strengthen Singapore’s capabilities to uphold our status as a well-regulated and trusted monetary centre.

– Loo Siew Yee, Assistant Managing Director (Policy, Payments & Financial Crime), MAS.

A COSMIC participant FI might share buyer info with one other participant FI provided that the client’s profile or behaviour shows sure objectively-defined indicators of suspicion, or “purple flags”.

The FSMA requires participant FIs to have in place insurance policies and operational safeguards to defend the confidentiality of knowledge shared. This will enable participant FIs to share info on potential prison behaviour whereas safeguarding the pursuits of the overwhelming majority of shoppers who’re reputable. Customers are inspired to proceed to present well timed responses if requested by FIs to present clarifications on their threat profiles or transactions, in order that FIs could make knowledgeable threat assessments.

COSMIC was co-developed by MAS and six main industrial banks in Singapore – DBS, OCBC, UOB, Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank. These banks would be the participant FIs on COSMIC throughout its preliminary part.

Information sharing is presently voluntary and targeted on three key monetary crime dangers in industrial banking, particularly: (a) misuse of authorized individuals; (b) misuse of commerce finance for illicit functions; and (c) proliferation financing.