Singapore and UK review financial cooperation on AI and digital assets

Singapore and the UK examined cooperation on digital assets, artificial intelligence and quantum security at their 11th Financial Dialogue in Singapore on 20 October. Participants included officials from MAS, HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

On tokenisation, Singapore presented work under Project Guardian, BLOOM and Global Layer One (GL1). The UK outlined its wholesale digital markets strategy and Digital Securities Sandbox. Officials also considered how digital money could affect institutional settlements and wholesale markets, alongside developments in crypto-assets and stablecoins.

AI discussions included Singapore’s Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR), introduced by MAS and industry partners in July 2026. The framework establishes checks to verify, authorise and record actions proposed by AI agents before they are carried out. The UK presented its AI Adoption Plan for Financial Services.

MAS and the FCA assessed work under their AI in Finance Partnership, including PathFin.ai, Spotlight, the FCA Supercharged Sandbox and the AI Observatory. They also discussed an AI taxonomy and possible further cooperation.

Quantum-security talks covered UK guidance for moving to post-quantum cryptography and lessons from MAS’s Quantum Key Distribution sandbox. The two sides exchanged views on supervisory expectations as financial institutions adopt quantum-safe technologies.

Capital-market discussions included UK reforms and British Business Bank initiatives, alongside Singapore’s measures to improve equities-market competitiveness and access to growth financing.

Sustainable-finance topics included UK transition-finance initiatives, climate adaptation through insurance, revisions to the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy 2.0 and Singapore’s experience with the Financial Sector Carbon Market Grant. The next dialogue will take place in the UK in 2027.