TODAY: On the issue of responsibility

MAS was asked about its accountability in the minibonds saga at the press conference:

About the Lehman saga, there were some comments that MAS sort of allowed such instruments to be marketed to consumers. Do you think MAS should take some responsibility?

Mr Heng Swee Keat, managing director of MAS, replied: “I have highlighted a number of things that MAS has been doing in terms of regulation and the supervision of financial institutions (FIs).

“And if you go through the investigation report which has been issued, you will notice that there is a fairly detailed report that goes into the operation of the FIs, and quite a lot of those are operational lapses.

“I emphasised in my remarks that those are the actions that we expect board and senior management of FIs to take, to ensure that guidelines and standards are complied with.”

Would it be fair to say that MAS has no responsibility for the crisis?

Mr Shane Tregillis, MAS deputy managing director of market conduct, said: “We outlined the steps that we took before. In terms of setting the rules, in terms of inspecting, you can clearly outline what we have done since the problems emerged.”