Given the interconnectedness of financial activities and systems, an effective cyber defence strategy requires close co-operation and sharing of cyber intelligence. A good model for such co-operation among banks in the US is the Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Centre, or FS-ISAC. 4/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  It is the global financial industry’s go-to resource for cyber threat intelligence analysis and sharing. I am pleased to announce that FS-ISAC will set up in Singapore the industry body’s only cyber intelligence centre in the Asia-Pacific region. This centre will help our financial industry better monitor cyber threats and provide better intelligence support. It will also help deepen the capabilities of the cyber security community here. INFRASTRUCTURE for an Innovation Ecosystem The second key thrust of Singapore’s FinTech agenda is to facilitate the infrastructure necessary for an innovation ecosystem and the adoption of new technologies. We need an ecosystem where people can connect and collaborate, and ideas can flow and multiply. We need common standards and inter-operable systems so that innovations can be scaled up quickly and their potential benefits fully realised. W want a hundred flowers of innovation to bloom but also want to ensure they make a garden. To facilitate such an ecosystem, MAS started with itself: Last year, we formed within MAS a new FinTech & Innovation Group under a Chief FinTech Officer – probably the first regulator in the world to do so.
In conclusion, I’d like to note that although the current economic slowdown is of both structural and cyclical nature, structural factors and the need to create new growth sources still play a major role. This means that monetary policy measures are not sufficient to solve all the problems facing the economy. Special efforts are needed to promote new investments in the economy, improve business climate, increase the mobility of labour and its skills, enhance the efficiency of natural monopolies and government expenditure, improve state governance, and develop infrastructure and logistics. Only these efforts will ensure sustained long-term economic growth based on increasing productivity and economic structural changes. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches