Singapore is considering introducing caning as a punishment for scammers, following a surge in fraud-related financial losses that placed the country at the top of global rankings for scam victimhood.
According to Finextra, in 2023, Singaporeans lost an average of $4,031 each to scams. This highlights the nation’s vulnerability despite—or because of—its digital sophistication, affluence, and general compliance with authority. The scale of the problem has prompted lawmakers to explore more severe deterrents.
Responding to a suggestion made during a recent parliamentary session, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling said that the government would “consider Dr Tan’s suggestion for caning to be prescribed for certain scam-related offences, recognising the serious harm they can cause.” The comment signals a potentially radical shift in policy as the government seeks stronger ways to protect citizens from financial crime.
Support for the proposal has also emerged from the financial sector. Loretta Yuen, chair of the fraud committee at the Association of Banks in Singapore, expressed her approval of the idea, telling the FT, “We believe in caning as a strong deterrent.” She further remarked, “It’s a deterrent, but there is also a sense of revenge to it.”
Singapore’s tough-on-crime reputation, along with its historically low crime rates, may lend weight to such extreme measures gaining traction. However, the proposal is likely to spark broader ethical and legal debates, especially given the international scrutiny that corporal punishment in the region has often attracted.
As financial services continue to digitise, governments around the world are under pressure to adapt their legal frameworks to respond to fast-evolving cyber-enabled crimes. Singapore’s consideration of such a severe step underscores the urgency and gravity of the scam crisis in one of Asia’s most digitally connected economies.
Singapore recently became the first country globally to roll out a nationwide digital utility that enables companies to automatically generate baseline sustainability metrics using government-source data.
The innovation comes from Gprnt (short for “Greenprint”), a local sustainability reporting platform launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under the Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN).
Backed by $4.62m (S$6m) in seed funding from Ant International and MUFG Bank, the new platform allows companies in Singapore to retrieve their utilities data—such as electricity, water, and town gas consumption—directly from the Energy Market Authority and PUB via GovTech’s Myinfo business service. Once retrieved, the data is automatically converted into key sustainability metrics, including Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, all at no cost.
This marks the world’s first instance of a government-backed digital platform providing all companies in a country, regardless of size, the ability to disclose their sustainability data seamlessly and be matched with partners willing to support or incentivise such disclosures.
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