Singlife Financial Advisers has enhanced controls and has stringent audits – remains confident it can meet all regulatory obligations

Singlife Financial Advisers Pte. Ltd. (SFA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Singlife, has accepted a fine by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), for breaches committed between November 2017 and March 2020 by supervisors of Aviva Financial Advisers (Aviva FA). 

The supervisors of Aviva FA had made private arrangements to act as supervisors of representatives who were under other team leaders. This led to commissions not being properly assessed under the Balanced Scorecard Framework of the Financial Advisers Act, and undermined adequate supervision and training of the representatives. The supervisors have left the company.  

Singlife and Aviva Ltd. announced a merger in September 2020, and this was completed on 1st January 2022.  Aviva FA became SFA. The breaches occurred before the merger.

Over the past four years, SFA has reconstituted the Board and its management team and engaged MAS closely on the legacy issues arising from the breaches. SFA has implemented controls and processes to prevent such breaches from recurring. This includes an annual attestation requirement where team leaders have to confirm that they do not have private arrangements with representatives and other team leaders.

SFA is fully committed to achieving high standards of compliance with the Financial Advisers Act. Its new management team has put in place enhanced controls, which have been reviewed by an independent external party. Stringent audit checks have been conducted to ensure that processes are robust. SFA is confident that the regulator, board, public, staff and all customers will continue to be satisfied with its performance.