DPT service providers face higher costs under MAS' investor protection measures

MAS has required all providers to hold customers' money and assets in a trust.

- Noreen Jazul

FINANCIAL SERVICES 

Learning from the collapse of digital payment token (DPT) service providers FTX and Genesis which left thousands of investors in limbo, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has mandated providers to put their customers’ money and assets in a trust.

Since the new measures imposed by MAS “have moved closer to capital service market requirements,” Wai Ming Yap, partner at Morgan Lewis, said DPT service providers will likely incur greater compliance costs.

“DPT service providers will need to adapt to the new requirements quickly and may have to restructure parts of their business processes and operations in order to comply,” added Yap.

Samuel Lim, partner at Rajah and Tann’s Financial Institutions Group, shared a similar sentiment, adding that the new requirements could lead to increased compliance costs for the DPT service providers.

However, Lim noted that the new requirements will benefit the industry as a whole as DPT service providers in Singapore will have “increased credibility” from being supervised under a regulatory framework for customer protection.