The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will issue a consultation paper on environmental risk management guidelines for financial institutions within the first quarter, according to Education Minister Ong Ye Kung.
Ong, who is also a board member of the MAS, said in Parliament that Singapore’s financial regulator and central bank is concerned about the risks brought about by climate change, Channel News Asia reported.
The consultation will gather input from various financial institutions and stakeholders and will help MAS formulate its own guidelines on how to manage environmental risks amid the threat of climate change.
MAS is a founding member of the Network for Greening the Financial System, an international organisation that seeks to develop best practices to make the financial industry more sustainable.
“Climate change is therefore increasingly relevant to financial institutions, both because the risks will be on their balance-sheets and because they will play a role in enabling their customers and the economy at large to make a transition – here in Singapore as well as abroad,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
During the Parliament session, Nee Soon GRC MP Louis Ng asked Ong whether the MAS was considering climate change-related risks in its annual industry-wide stress tests.
Ong responded that the MAS has already factored this into its stress tests. He cited the 2018 test, which included testing insurers’ responses to extreme flooding. However, the methods on how to stress-test climate change risks are still in their infancy, he said.
