SINGAPORE IS CATCHING UP
"The exchange can no longer afford to be a backwater,' declared Joseph Ybaraj Manuel Pillay, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, introducing reforms designed to bring the Singapore Stock Exchange up to date. An unlisted securities market, opening next month, is only the first of these.
With the USM will come automated screen trading systems and a scrip depositary, to make scripless trading possible. The new system, modelled on Nasdaq, will be called Sesdaq--Stock Exchange of Singapore Dealing and Automated Quotation. Some stocks from the main board may eventually be transferred to the new system.
Change has been pressed on the Singapore broking community by an impatient MAS, ever since the collapse of Pan Electric Industries, a local conglomerate, in November 1985. On November 5 1986 the stock exchange swore-in its new management committee under Pillay's approving eye. For the first time in its 20-year existence the exchange has chosen, for its new executive chairman, a non-broker. Of the nine members of the committee, four came from outside the broking community.
These changes mean the end of self-regulation. As the country's de facto central bank, the MAS has been working for this.