The ITM 2025 formalizes a vision to connect global markets, support Asia's development, and serve Singapore's economy.

The Three-Pronged Vision

The Monetary Authority of Singapore's refreshed Financial Services Industry Transformation Map 2025 codifies a three-part vision that positions the city-state as the premier Asian financial hub by connecting global markets, financing Asia's transition, and strengthening the domestic economy. Former Deputy Prime Minister and then-Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong, who also served as Deputy Chairman of MAS, launched the ITM 2025 to "forge new growth pathways" for the financial sector. The core vision: anchor Singapore as a leading international financial centre in Asia through three strategic pillars—connect global markets, support Asia's development, and serve Singapore's economy. This framework, articulated on MAS's official development portal, provides the strategic foundation for all subsequent policymaking and industry engagement.

Connecting Global Markets

MAS positions Singapore as the gateway for global capital flows into and out of Asia. The authority's longstanding vision, as documented in the SMU Institutional Knowledge research, has been to attract global fund managers to use Singapore as a base to invest in Asia while simultaneously enabling Asian investors to use the city-state as a platform to diversify out of Asia. This dual-lane strategy has produced measurable outcomes: Singapore is consistently ranked as Asia's top FinTech hub, supported by a pro-business environment, cost competitiveness, and a skilled workforce, according to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy case study on Singapore's financial hub transformation.

The Financial Sector Development Fund provides the fiscal architecture for this strategy, offering tax incentives and grants to financial institutions establishing or expanding in Singapore. MAS also administers the Financial Sector Incentive (FSI) scheme and Insurance Business Development (IBD) scheme to attract specialised operations. The three value propositions underpinning Singapore's success—a conducive pro-business environment, cost competitiveness, and a skilled workforce—remain the bedrock of the connecting-global-markets pillar, as highlighted in the MAS development portal.

Supporting Asia's Development

MAS has committed explicitly to support the region's transition to a low-carbon economy. In his remarks on the MAS Annual Report 2024/2025, Managing Director Chia Der Jiun affirmed that Singapore and MAS "take a long-term view of staying the course on sustainability, despite the current uncertainties and headwinds internationally in climate action." Singapore is already ASEAN's largest market for green, social, sustainable, and sustainability-linked (GSSSL) bonds and loans. GSSSL loans originated from Singapore reached a new high of over S$48 billion in 2024.

Value (S$ billion) (S$ billion)Source: Orionmano Industries

Beyond sustainable finance, MAS is developing a full-service Asian infrastructure financing hub to cater to Asia's growing infrastructure needs. This dovetails with the broader ITM 2025 strategy to catalyse Asia's net-zero transition, leveraging the financial sector's ability to deploy capital toward a greener future for the region.

Serving Singapore’s Economy

MAS's domestic mandate as the integrated central bank and financial supervisor ensures that the financial sector serves the real economy. As defined by the MAS Act, the authority acts as Singapore's central bank, formulating and implementing monetary policy to secure medium-term price stability through exchange rate management. Chia Der Jiun underscored this in his July 2025 remarks: "MAS' mandate to secure medium-term price stability will provide an anchor of stability for the Singapore economy in these times of uncertainty and fundamental change."

Simultaneously, MAS fosters a sound financial sector through prudential oversight of all financial institutions—banks, insurers, capital market intermediaries, financial advisors, and stock exchanges. The authority gives particular focus this year to the resilience of retail payments services, expecting financial institutions to "uphold high levels of resilience and availability for the key services they provide, and be able to safely and swiftly recover services when a disruption occurs," as Chia stated. The SMU research notes that MAS evaluates the risk profile of each institution, providing closer supervision for systemically important entities while giving greater business latitude to well-managed firms.

Strategic Initiatives and Future Outlook

The ITM 2025 operationalises the three-pillar vision through four key strategies: enhancing asset class strengths, digitalising financial infrastructure, catalysing Asia's net-zero transition, and shaping the future of financial networks. MAS continues to develop focus areas including asset management, sustainable finance, insurance and risk financing, and fintech innovation. The financial sector's development is integrated with Singapore's Smart Nation ambition through FinTech and innovation initiatives, including the annual Singapore FinTech Festival.

Looking ahead, MAS will deepen its three-pillar strategy amid global trade fragmentation and climate urgency. Chia identified the near-term headwinds: "Tariffs and other trade restrictive practices and geopolitical fragmentation will bring about deeper changes to trade, investment flows and supply chains." He advised that Singapore's economy and businesses "will need to navigate these changes by strengthening connectivity and linkages, diversifying revenue streams and building more resilient business models."

MAS's tripartite vision—connecting global markets, supporting Asia's development, and serving Singapore's economy—provides a coherent strategic framework that balances external connectivity with domestic resilience. The challenge will be executing all three pillars simultaneously as the global financial landscape undergoes structural transformation.