Singapore said Tuesday it had fined Credit Suisse and United Overseas Bank (UOB), a local lender, for breaches of the city-state’s anti-money laundering laws relating to a corruption scandal at Malaysian state fund 1MDB.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, said it also imposed lifetime bans on two bankers and a 15-year prohibition order on a third following a two-year review of lenders involved in 1MDB-related transactions.
According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Singapore’s stringent bank secrecy laws have attracted $1.1 trillion in foreign capital, and its growth rate is bypassing that of Switzerland. Singapore will become the world’s largest multinational financial center by 2028, according the report. For foreign capital, Singapore’s management is relatively lenient. Singapore immigration authorities only generally check "the first pot of gold" of the immigrant applicants.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC is selling part of its stake in Swiss bank UBS at a loss, nearly a decade after it first invested in the bank at the height of the financial crisis.
"Conditions have changed fundamentally since GIC invested in UBS in February 2008, as have UBS’ strategy and business," GIC Chief Executive Officer Lim Chow Kiat said early Tuesday (May 16) in a statement. "It makes sense now for GIC to reduce its ownership of UBS and to redeploy these resources elsewhere," Mr Lim said.
Singapore banned former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker Tim Leissner from the securities industry for 10 years and said it plans to issue similar orders against three others caught up in the scandal surrounding 1Malaysia Development Bhd. Leissner, who left Goldman Sachs in February 2016, was sanctioned because he issued an unauthorized letter to a financial institution and made false statements on behalf of the U.S. bank without its knowledge, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement Monday. The central bank had signaled its intention to ban Leissner last year.
Singapore has reportedly seized a $35 million private jet belonging to 1MDB mastermind Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, who is under investigation for his involvement in the scandal-hit Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)
The Bombardier Global 5000 jet is part of some $1 billion in assets allegedly acquired with funds siphoned from 1MDB fund that the US government is moving to seize. The police declined to comment on whether the authorities had grounded the plane, stating that investigations are still in progress.
The US alleges that the funds were laundered through the US banking system and is seeking to confiscate Low’s private jet, as well as other properties including a $100-million interest in EMI Music Publishing Group, and a $380-million stake in the Park Lane Hotel in New York.
Switzerland placed first overall in international university Insead’s 2017 Global Talent Competitive Index (GTCI); the annual study, released by international graduate university Insead on Monday, measures a nation’s competitiveness based on the quality of talent that it can produce, attract and retain.
This year’s report explores the effects of technological change on talent competitiveness, arguing that while jobs at all levels continue to be replaced by machines, technology is also creating new opportunities.
A Swiss banker was jailed for seven months in Singapore on Wednesday for money laundering and other offences related to a corruption scandal involving neighbouring Malaysia’s state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
Jens Fred Sturzenegger, 42, who headed the Singapore branch of Swiss lender Falcon Private Bank, was also fined $89,000 after he pleaded guilty at a district court. The Swiss national is the first foreigner to be charged in the 1MDB-linked probe by Singapore authorities.
The bank, which is also under investigation at home, was the second Swiss lender whose Singapore unit was ordered to cease operations last year after BSI Bank Ltd.
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