MAS Issues New Guidelines On Outsourcing Risk Management With Guidance On Cloud Services

On 27 July 2016, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (the "MAS") issued new Guidelines on Outsourcing Risk Management (the "new Guidelines"), together with a set of Frequently Asked Questions on Outsourcing (the "FAQs"). The new Guidelines supersede the previous version issued in 2004, as well as the Information Technology Outsourcing Circular issued in 2011.

Revisions to the MAS regulatory regime on outsourcing were first proposed by MAS in two consultation papers published on 5 September 2014, with one paper proposing changes to the existing non-mandatory standards set out in guidelines and the second paper proposing that certain measures be made mandatory and set out in legally binding notices issued to each class of financial institutions (each an "FI") that are regulated by MAS. These initiatives were intended to address evolving cyber threats and increasingly complex outsourcing arrangements.