The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has recorded a net loss of $30.8 billion for the financial year ended March 31, recording a small investment gain amid a challenging market environment of bond and equity markets’ poor performance.
This was however outweighed by negative currency translation effects and interest expenses on domestic money market operations. The MAS tightened monetary policy three times over the period to dampen inflationary pressures.
This led to a broad appreciation of the SGD against the currencies that the OFR were held, resulting in significant negative currency translation effects as the MAS’s financial results are reported in the SGD.
Total expenditure of $13.7 billion was largely due to interest expenses on MAS bills and other borrowings for domestic money market operations. As the SGD interest rates rose together with the increase in global interest rates, the MAS incurred higher interest expense in its conduct of money market operations.
For this financial year, there is no contribution to the consolidated fund, nor return of profits to the government.
As a conservative measure to ensure that the MAS remains well‐capitalised relative to its assets, the central bank increased its issued and paid‐up capital by $25 billion to $50 billion in this financial year.
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As at March 31, total capital and reserves of MAS was $34.3 billion, down from $40.1 billion the year prior.
