On 14 January 2019, Singapore’s Parliament passed the Payment Services Act, which regulates payment services & places regulatory oversight with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

The Act comprises 2 regulatory frameworks.

The designation regime enables MAS to designate significant payment systems for financial stability and efficiency & competition reasons.

The licensing regime covers 7 types of services: account issuance, domestic money transfers, cross-border money transfers, merchant acquisition, e-money issuance, digital payment token dealing and exchanges, and money-changing. There will be 3 tiers of licences: money-changing licences, standard payment institutions which may provide services up to a specified transaction flow or e-money float threshold, and major payment institutions, who will be subject to more regulation due to the higher associated risk.

This will make Singapore one of the first financial services regulators in the world to introduce a regulatory framework for digital payment token services.

Basis Technologies Pte Ltd, an AI-focused start-up founded by the former head of data science at Twitter Asia Pacific, the former head of data science at Uber and Dropbox, and the former director of data science and AI at Singapore’s GovTech, completed its Series A financing with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, and Sequoia India.

This was one of the very first deals to be negotiated and completed utilizing the Venture Capital Investment Model Agreements (VIMA) which were released by the Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SVCA) in October 2018.

AEI lawyers Andrea Chee & Cheryl Yang advised Basis Technologies.

The Secret Little Agency (TSLA), an independent regional creative agency with brands such as Singapore’s Economic Development Board, Nestle’s Milo and Netflix as clients, has inked a global strategic partnership with Mother, UK’s largest independent advertising agency, involving the creation of investment & joint venture arrangements.

The deal is expected to close in 2019 after certain regulatory procedures are completed.

Director Andrea Chee and Associate Director Cheryl Yang advised TSLA.