MAS appoints five asset managers under Singapore’s equity-market programme
Monetary Authority of Singapore has appointed five asset managers under the third batch of its S$6.5 billion Equity Market Development Programme, and says it will place S$1.45 billion with them. The 29 September announcement brings total allocations under the programme to S$5.4 billion across 14 man
Monetary Authority of Singapore has appointed five asset managers under the third batch of its S$6.5 billion Equity Market Development Programme, and says it will place S$1.45 billion with them. The 29 September announcement brings total allocations under the programme to S$5.4 billion across 14 managers.
The newly appointed firms are Amundi, Franklin Templeton, HSBC Asset Management, M&G Investments and Natixis Investment Managers. MAS says the programme is intended to help broaden investor participation in Singapore’s equities market, with the managers drawing on their distribution networks to seek capital exposure to Singapore and the region.
MAS also committed S$20 million from the Financial Sector Development Fund to a new Grant for Equity Market Singapore market-making scheme. The agency says the scheme will support appointed market makers for an initial group of about 80 eligible small- and mid-cap SGX-listed stocks, as well as newly listed stocks, through 31 December 2028.
For issuers, advisers and investors, the immediate signal is a further allocation of state-backed capital and a separate market-making support route. It is relevant to how Singapore is trying to deepen its equities ecosystem, particularly for companies considering capital-market access and for managers looking at regional mandates.
The announcement does not demonstrate stronger trading liquidity, tighter spreads, investment performance or a completed market turnaround. Those effects depend on the appointed managers’ activity, market-maker participation, the eligible-stock list and investor decisions that follow.
Businesses evaluating Singapore’s capital-market environment should therefore treat the release as a policy and allocation milestone. The practical questions remain which companies and stocks gain access, how mandates are deployed and whether subsequent market data shows changes in participation or execution conditions.
MAS says it is reviewing proposals for a fourth batch of managers and expects to complete that review in 2027. That leaves the current release as a defined next step in a longer implementation programme, rather than a final verdict on Singapore’s public-equities market.
Source: MAS’s 29 September release.
