MAS Guidelines on Individual Accountability and Conduct

The IAC Guidelines set out five accountability and conduct outcomes and guidance for each of these five outcomes. Financial institutions must achieve all five outcomes and implement all guidance commensurate to the specific financial institution’s nature, size and complexity of business.

The objective of the IAC Guidelines is to assist financial institutions by providing a framework and best practices for strengthening accountability and standards of conduct.

The guidance in the IAC Guidelines is not intended to be exhaustive nor prescriptive. Financial institutions have the flexibility to adopt additional measures, enhance measures or not to adopt specific guidance that they have assessed to be irrelevant to their specific business. However, they should justify their decision not to adopt guidance, demonstrate how they achieve the relevant outcomes through other means and document their reasoning. Small financial institutions with fewer than fifty headcounts should achieve the five outcomes but will not ordinarily be expected to adopt the specific guidance described in the IAC Guidelines. MAS however has the power to mandate any financial institution to adopt specific guidance, irrespective of the financial institution’s size.

The IAC Guidelines applies to all types of financial institutions in Singapore, including banks, fund management companies, external asset managers, financial advisers, trust businesses, payment institutions including remittance and crypto exchanges. Specified exemptions however apply. Where the financial institution in Singapore is part of a group, MAS expects the group to also apply the IAC guidelines in all entities are held by the Singapore entity.