The caps would also affect expatriates or freelancers in Singapore who use multi-currency accounts to receive their salaries, said Venkatesh Saha, head of Asia Pacific and Middle East expansion at online money transfer platform TransferWise.
The average monthly salary in Singapore works out to be S$67,200 annually, according to Saha. “With the caps, they would not be able to hold their full monthly salary in their account, nor use our product to send out the full annual amount to perhaps their family member’s bank account overseas, for example.”
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History of Crypto Regulation in Singapore
The caps would also bring down the volume of transactions on Singapore’s fintech platforms. This would hamstring fintechs in terms of disrupting banks, especially on the foreign exchange front, the founders argue.
“[Fintech companies] threaten to eliminate foreign exchange fee incomes for banks,” said a fintech founder who requested anonymity. “When Singaporeans travel, banks typically make 3%-4% on exchange rates. It’s a massive business for Singapore’s banks—a cash cow.”
“The transaction caps mean that we are unable to offer our Singapore customers the same convenient and low-cost experience that we offer in, say, Australia or the United Kingdom. Globally, our customers save £1 billion (S$1.8 billion) a year when they use us instead of banks.”
VENKATESH SAHA, HEAD OF APAC AND MIDDLE EAST EXPANSION AT TRANSFERWISE
Another restriction Singapore’s fintech users face is that they cannot use their wallet-linked cards to withdraw money from ATMs. “Fintech startups are trying to chip away at local banks,” added the founder quoted above. “We are striving towards a cashless society and forcing banks to do a better job for the user. But I don’t see how this [Act] is better for Singapore. It’s not good for the consumer.”
Bryan Tan, partner at law firm Pinsent Masons MPillay also pointed out various costs that the fintech startups will have to bear, such as preparing the licence application, licensing fees, trustee arrangements, putting in place Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering processes and documentation, and other regulations such as cyber hygiene and technology risk management.
“We’ve spent considerable resources over the past four years to improve our Singapore product to pass on savings to our customers, but in complying with the Act we are ironically making our product more expensive for them,” said TransferWise’s Saha.
Most of the startups, however, claim that complying with the new Act is not an issue. For YouTrip, the PSA was a good chance to beef up their compliance team, which is now 20-strong. This team, according to YouTrip’s Chu, is responsible for monitoring transactions and regulations across the jurisdictions that the multi-currency wallet operates out of.
However, cyptocurrency exchange Luno does see some challenges with the PSA’s wire-transfer requirements. Singapore’s fintechs have to ensure that anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing frameworks are followed because a global task force, called the Financial Action Task Force, has oversight across borders.
“There are technical obstacles, specifically identifying and implementing a complete solution that allows the lawful and effective transfer of requisite information to counterparts,” said Sherry Goh, country manager, Singapore, at Luno. “That said, we see progressive discussions in the industry and are on a good track to promptly comply with all requirements.”