Monetary Authority of Singapore Issues Revised Technology Risk Management Guidelines
MAS updated its Technology Risk Management Guidelines with stronger expectations for third-party oversight, cyber resilience, and incident response in regulated financial institutions.
Executive briefing: On January 30, 2024 the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released revised Technology Risk Management (TRM) Guidelines. The updates strengthen requirements for third-party risk management, cyber resilience testing, data centre governance, and incident reporting for banks, insurers, and capital markets intermediaries operating in Singapore.
Key compliance signals
- Third-party controls. Financial institutions must enhance oversight of outsourced service providers, including data centre operators and cloud services.
- Resilience testing. MAS now expects regular scenario-based exercises, cyber range testing, and validation of recovery time objectives for critical systems.
- Data governance. The guidelines emphasise data classification, access controls, and monitoring across production and recovery sites.
Control alignment
- Vendor governance. Update outsourcing frameworks to meet MAS documentation, audit, and notification expectations.
- Business continuity. Align disaster recovery drills and reporting with the enhanced TRM resilience criteria.
- Board oversight. Ensure boards receive regular updates on technology risk posture and compliance attestations.
Action checklist
- Conduct a gap assessment against the revised TRM controls for infrastructure and application domains.
- Engage critical third parties to confirm they can provide evidence required under the updated guidelines.
- Refresh incident response plans to incorporate MAS reporting timelines and escalation criteria.
Sources
- MAS — Technology Risk Management Guidelines (January 2024)
- MAS Media Release — Revised TRM Guidelines
Zeph Tech aligns Singapore-regulated institutions with MAS’s strengthened TRM expectations across data centre and vendor governance.