Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) risk management and regulatory group moved into a new phase with various high-level appointments taking effect on Friday.
The group’s functions now cover four separate categories: regulation, risk management, clearing risk and regulatory development and policy, which is expanded to include legal functions related to regulation.
Richard Teng, formerly head of issuer regulation and chief of staff for the group, is now head of regulation in charge of overseeing issuer regulation, Catalist regulation, member supervision, market surveillance and enforcement.
The role’s primary focus involves supervising issuers, market participants and intermediaries. Two of the other new appointees, Kelvin Koh and Annie Ong, now work under Teng as head of market surveillance and acting head of enforcement, respectively.
Risk management for new products and services gets a boost with a new head of clearing risk, Agnes Siew.
And the expanded regulatory development and policy unit is headed by Mohamed Nasser Ismail, previously head of the enforcement/regulatory policy, risk management and regulation group.
The changes, announced in mid-June, are aimed at maintaining robust standards of regulation for SGX-listed companies.
They also come in the wake of a long string of scandals surrounding Chinese stocks listed in Singapore (also known as S-chips), which have had investors questioning the extent to which SGX scrutinizes foreign listings.
SGX has emphasized the need to maintain high regulatory standards several times this year, pointing out that investors are increasingly focusing on risk management and corporate governance.
‘Sound regulation is integral to the attractiveness of our markets,’ says SGX chief regulatory officer Yeo Lian Sim in a press release announcing the changes.
‘We will maintain the high regulatory standards and effective risk management that are important for our trading and clearing services.’
