The Monetary Authority of Singapore on 30 September published a consultation on targeted updates to the corporate governance regulations for banks, insurers and designated financial holding companies. MAS describes the changes as refinements. Read the 63-page consultation paper and two proposals stand out for their bite: a nine-year limit on independence that MAS wants to be a hard rule with no exceptions, and larger minimum boards for the institutions that matter most to Singapore’s financial system.
Long-serving directors lose their independent status with no exceptions
MAS proposes that a director who has served on the board for an aggregate period of nine years or longer be considered non-independent. Tenures add up even if the director left and later returned, and the paper says there will be no exceptions. The limit also reaches back into a company’s pre-licence history: a director who served six years on the board of a company before it obtained a banking licence would become non-independent after three more years.
MAS also wants the limit to apply where the rules only require independence from management and business relationships. That covers banks and insurers with a single shareholder holding 50% or more, which today can run boards with one-third independence. Under the proposal, a long-serving director at such a subsidiary could stay on the board but would no longer count toward its independence quota, so some boards will need fresh appointments to keep their numbers.
The independence tests themselves also tighten. Directors employed by, or having dealings with, related corporations or affiliates would be deemed non-independent from management and business relationships.
Systemic banks would need at least seven directors
The consultation sets a tiered structure for board composition. Domestic systemically important banks and their holding companies would need a minimum of seven directors, and full banks and domestic systemically important insurers a minimum of five. MAS ties those numbers to the number of committees each institution must run and the independence required on each.
Committee rules move in the same direction. The chair of the audit committee and the risk management committee at a D-SIB could not chair the board or any other mandatory committee, and the audit committee chair could not sit on the risk committee. The board chair could not also chair the nominating committee. MAS cites the Basel Committee’s corporate governance principles for the audit and risk committee changes.
Technology officers join the approval list
MAS plans to add the chief information officer at D-SIB banks, and the chair of the nominating committee at locally incorporated banks and insurers, to the list of appointments that need its approval in advance. The media release links the CIO change to the weight of technology and information risk at board and senior management level. For the D-SIBs, that brings the person running core systems under the same pre-vetting as the chief risk officer and chief financial officer.
The relief runs the other way for smaller firms. For full banks that are not D-SIBs, the paper’s approval table removes the head of treasury from the list. MAS also proposes dropping prior approval for some board and senior appointments at firms assessed to have less retail reach or lower systemic importance. Designated financial holding companies with a bank or insurer subsidiary would generally be held to the same standards as their subsidiaries.
Strong corporate governance remains fundamental to well-run and resilient FIs.
MAS media release, 30 September 2026
Most changes get two years, some apply at once
MAS says the changes are substantial enough to require adjustments to board composition, so it proposes a two-year transition from the effective date of the revised regulations. A list of items would take effect immediately on amendment, including the aggregate nine-year limit, the board and committee responsibilities, limits on one person holding several senior posts at once and the revised approval regimes for banks and insurers.
The immediate start for the nine-year rule is where banks will push back. A board with several directors past nine years would lose independence counts on day one, while the two-year transition applies to the board size and composition rules those same directors help satisfy. Firms responding to the consultation have a good case for asking MAS to align the two.
What to watch
- Comments due by 9 December 2026 through the FormSG link in the consultation.
- Whether MAS keeps the nine-year limit as a hard rule or allows the nominating committee any discretion.
- Timing of the amended regulations, which sets the start of the two-year transition.
- Changes to the November 2021 Guidelines on Corporate Governance to match the regulations.
Primary sources
- MAS, MAS consults on targeted updates to corporate governance requirements for banks, insurers and designated financial holding companies, 30 September 2026
- MAS, Consultation paper on amendments to the corporate governance regulations, September 2026
Photo (cropped): Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
