# Monetary Authority of Singapore

> Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS): The regulator that priced the risk instead of banning it. Region: Asia-Pacific. Confidential with disclosure: Confidentiality is workable so long as the regulated firm can identify the parties and disclose on demand. Encrypted amounts are not the thing being restricted.

Part of the Soda Labs Privacy Hub regulation map, which reads the instruments
themselves rather than summarising the summaries: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation

## Key facts

- Entry type: Regulator or standard-setter
- Region: Asia-Pacific
- Subject: The regulator that priced the risk instead of banning it
- Authority: MAS
- Stance on on-chain confidentiality: Confidential with disclosure. Confidentiality is workable so long as the regulated firm can identify the parties and disclose on demand. Encrypted amounts are not the thing being restricted.
- Tags: risk-based, no prohibition, zero threshold, information sharing
- Canonical page: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-mas

## What it actually says

Worth reading closely because it is the road not taken elsewhere. Faced with the same assets that Dubai and Malaysia prohibited outright, Singapore's regulator chose enhanced obligations instead, and said so in Parliament: privacy coins, privacy wallets and mixers are to be risk-assessed and monitored, not barred. Firms are told to pay special attention to technologies that favour anonymity, which is a supervisory expectation rather than a listing rule. MAS has also observed that most licensed providers decline to offer such assets anyway, which is the market making a commercial choice rather than the regulator making it for them. The transfer rules are strict in the other direction, with no minimum value at all.

## The instruments that matter

- **Notice PSN02**: providers must risk-assess privacy tokens before dealing and pay special attention to technologies that favour anonymity, with enhanced transaction monitoring, but no prohibition
- **The position stated in Parliament, October 2022**: privacy coins, privacy wallets and mixers attract enhanced obligations rather than prohibition
- **No de minimis on transfers**: at or below SGD 1,500 originator and beneficiary names and account numbers still travel; above it the originator's identity must be verified
- **COSMIC, live since 1 April 2024**: a statutory carve-out from banking confidentiality letting six banks share customer risk information with each other rather than publicly

## Sources

- [MAS Notice PSN02](https://www.mas.gov.sg/regulation/notices/psn02-aml-cft-notice---digital-payment-token-service)
- [MAS parliamentary reply on privacy coins](https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/parliamentary-replies/2022/reply-to-parliamentary-question-on-prevalence-and-regulation-of-cryptocurrency-transactions)

## Related entries

- [Singapore](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/jur-singapore): Regulates anonymity by risk assessment, not prohibition
- [South Korea](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/jur-south-korea): Identity-maximalist, and exporting the model
- [Hong Kong SFC](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-hk-sfc): Retail exclusion achieved without naming anonymity
- [APG](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-apg): How the global standards actually reach Asia
- [Australia](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/jur-australia): Travel rule without a threshold, no coin ban
- [Hong Kong SAR](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/jur-hong-kong): Retail exclusion by liquidity gate, not by anonymity rule