For example, CXA Group, a health technology start-up established in Singapore, is expanding its services to China and is planning to partner Shanghai Zhongheng Insurance Brokers for its China expansion. There is scope for collaboration to enhance our mutual understanding of new business models and assist in negotiating regulatory hurdles for these companies. 16 One important aspect of enhancing the eco-system is the enrichment of the range of financing opportunities for FinTech companies. Venture capital (VC) managers are an essential component of the start-up eco-system, providing capital as well as expertise to start-ups and early growth businesses. China already has the largest concentration of VC funding globally2. Singapore also hopes to create a conducive environment for VCs by simplifying the approval process and regulatory regime for VC managers. At the same time, we hope to expand the range of funding options to cater to the varied needs of companies at different stages of development. Finally, there is also room to deepen information and knowledge exchange between Shanghai and Singapore industry participants. To this end, MAS and the Shanghai Financial 17  Services Office are discussing a customised training programme to encourage mutual exchange between financial sector players. Through such exchanges, industry participants can get a better understanding of each other’s markets and enhance their knowledge of specialized topics. 18 And this marks only the beginning of our long-term relationship.
This is how a historian termed the Bank of England in the early days of its existence. At that time, the Bank basically acted as banker to the state and manager of national debt, thereby contributing to financing wars and imperial expansion. With their roots going back to the Age of Enlightenment, early central banks stood for the economic emancipation, ambition and power of the states that established them. Due to their potency as state banks they gradually assumed functions such as the bankers’ bank, lender of last resort, regulator of financial activity and privileged issuer of money. In the case of Switzerland, the National Bank was founded (in 1907) in order to unify a somewhat chaotic system of banknote issues and to simplify the payment system. All these functions have remained predominant and gained profile over large parts of central bank history. By contrast, monetary policy as it is practised today is a comparatively recent central bank discipline. It became permanently relevant only after World War II, when the gold-linked money standard was abandoned in favour of a US dollar standard. In fact, individual central banks gained control over “their” money supply only when the US dollar pegs were given up in the early 1970s. For a long time, the policy objectives of many central banks oscillated between financing the state and maintaining the (internal and external) value and reputation of the currency.