His words don’t carry a fraction of Fed chair Janet Yellen’s power to move markets; nor do his actions possess the strength of Haruhiko Kuroda’s balance-sheet manoeuvres at the Bank of Japan. He isn't an intellectual in the mold of economist Andy Haldane at the Bank of England, or Raghuram Rajan, the former governor at the Reserve Bank of India.
Yet this central banker from a nation of 5.6 million people, a policymaker who doesn't even set his own interest rates or issue a currency that's widely held overseas, is front and centre of a revolution in global finance.
Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore since 2011, is the architect of the most audacious makeover of Singapore's financial system in 50 years.
But unlike in 1968, when a newly independent Singapore merely wanted to be trusted with dollar deposits in the hours when New York was off to dinner and London slept, the game is different. In fintech, Menon isn't just looking to fill a gap. He wants Singapore to shine a light from which even the West can draw regulatory comfort.
Monetary czars are like parents. A good many outlaw parties because there would be drink and drugs – or their central-banking equivalent, cryptocurrencies. Enlightened new-age guardians like Menon, however, are creating safe spaces for experimentation in “regulatory sandboxes.”
Do they worry about abuse? “I weigh up more disaster scenarios than you can think of,” Menon told Neue Zeurcher Zeitung. Yet, he's fine not regulating bitcoin, so long as intermediaries dealing in it follow anti-money-laundering rules.
Whether it’s disrupting heavily paper-based trade finance with blockchain, or slashing know-your-customer costs by opening bank accounts with a shared utility, Menon gives fintech initiatives a stamp of respectability.
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