The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore have partnered to establish a taskforce investigating the risks posed by frontier AI in the country.
Singapore’s central bank and the industry body for the banking sector announced on

Tuesday that they had established the AI-Driven Cyber and Technology Risk Taskforce (ACT), an industry-wide initiative to “strengthen collective cyber and technology resilience in response to the emerging risks posed by frontier AI models”.

The two groups have been convening since May and describe the taskforce’s establishment as a “significant step” in the sector’s response to AI-driven threats.

The taskforce will bring together financial institutions, cybersecurity experts, and payments providers, as well as including members from a variety of major banks in the country.

ACT will focus on three key areas: industry collaboration, capability uplift and guidance development. Across these three focuses, the taskforce aims to facilitate the sharing of AI cybersecurity use cases across the financial sector, conduct proof-of-concept trials to validate AI-enabled tools, and develop guidance for financial institutions on detecting and responding to AI threats.

Vincent Loy, assistant managing director, technology, and chief technology officer at MAS, said, “Frontier AI is increasing the severity, scale and sophistication of cyber threats. The financial sector must respond with urgency and through strong collaboration.

“Through this Taskforce, MAS will work closely with industry partners to strengthen our collective defences and ensure Singapore’s financial sector remains resilient against AI-enabled risks.”

Singapore is not the only country whose central bank has raised concerns over AI threats. At the beginning of August, the Bank of England warned that existing regulatory frameworks may not be suitable to oversee increasingly autonomous AI systems, and the release of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model earlier this year sparked fears from institutions globally including the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve.

---