TL;DR

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has formed a strategic AI partnership with Singapore’s Monetary Authority and will establish a presence in the country for the first time. Announced at the Singapore Fintech Festival, the collaboration focuses on safe and responsible AI innovation to help UK and Singapore firms scale and operate across markets. The FCA will appoint a Financial Services Attaché based at the British High Commission in Singapore, forming part of broader plans to establish presence in other priority markets. Key partnership activities include joint AI solution testing, regulatory insight exchange, and collaborative events.

Opening

The FCA’s Singapore partnership and physical presence represent an expansion of the regulator’s international footprint focused specifically on artificial intelligence innovation. The arrangement addresses challenges firms face when scaling AI solutions across jurisdictions with different regulatory frameworks.

Context: Structure and Objectives

The partnership centres on practical collaboration mechanisms. Joint testing of AI solutions will allow both regulators to evaluate innovative approaches in controlled environments. Exchange of regulatory insights aims to identify common challenges and share successful oversight strategies. Collaborative events will spotlight best-in-class approaches to responsible AI implementation in financial services.

Innovative firms interested in participating in FCA-MAS AI Spotlight events can apply via the AI Spotlight programme, highlighting their solution’s relevance to safe and responsible innovation across both markets. The partnership builds on existing FCA-MAS collaboration including Project Guardian, an initiative exploring tokenization and decentralised finance applications.

The FCA’s first Singapore-based official—a Financial Services Attaché at the British High Commission—joins recently appointed regional representatives: an Asia-Pacific Director based in Australia (Camille Blackburn, appointed April 2025) and an official at the British Embassy in Washington DC (Tash Miah) focused on UK-US financial services cooperation.

Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, information, and intelligence officer, emphasized the partnership’s focus on enabling firms in both countries to “grow through collaboration, gauge new cross-border opportunities, and shape the future of responsible AI innovation in finance.”

Looking Forward

The FCA’s international expansion strategy positions the regulator to influence global AI governance frameworks whilst supporting UK firms’ international growth. The Singapore partnership specifically targets a jurisdiction recognised as a financial technology hub with mature digital asset regulation.

For UK firms, the collaboration potentially reduces regulatory friction when entering Singapore markets, whilst Singaporean firms gain clearer pathways to UK operations. The partnership’s effectiveness will depend on whether joint testing produces actionable insights and whether regulatory alignment enables genuine cross-border scaling without duplicative compliance requirements.

The FCA’s establishment of priority market presence suggests the regulator recognizes that effective supervision increasingly requires on-the-ground relationships rather than solely remote coordination, particularly as AI innovation accelerates across financial services.

Source: Financial Conduct Authority