Singapore records 42 million SWIFT core FIN messages in 2007 Growth reinforces Singapore's status as one of the most influential commercial centre and easiest city to do business in Southeast Asia as reported in recent global index

SWIFT, the global provider of secure messaging services, in its 2007 annual report published that Singapore recorded 42 million SWIFT core FIN messages sent in 2007, making it the fastest growing country in Southeast Asia and the second fastest amongst major countries across the globe.

According to the annual report, Asia Pacific recorded 407 million FIN messages in 2007, of which Singapore represented approximately 10 percent of this figure. (See Appendix A below for relevant graphs and statistics)

SWIFT FIN messages are individual, richly featured messaging that has the highest levels of security and resilience, and is utilised by 8,468 users across the globe. As such, the high volume of FIN messages in a particular country or territory would be indicative of the growth level of securities and payments in a specific market.

"Over the years, SWIFT has seen an increase in securities volumes and witnessed a steady growth in the payments traffic in both Asia Pacific and Singapore, which are all indications of positive movement in the financial sector in this part of the world," said Charles Legrand, Head of South Asia for SWIFT.

In fact, Singapore was ranked one of the most influential commercial centre and the easiest city to do business in a recent index of worldwide centres of excellence for commerce conducted by a multinational corporation in the global payments industry.

"The growth in the securities arena has enhanced cross border flows, thus giving Singapore the ability to become the first place of choice for investors from both Asia Pacific and beyond," said Mr Legrand. "In fact, this availability of liquidity pools and the ease of doing business has in many aspects allowed Singapore to 'steal distance' from its competitors."

According to the annual report, the message growth in Singapore for 2007 has further been boosted by the implementation of Electronic Payments Systems (MEPS+) by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). MEPS+ is a real-time gross settlement system, running on the SWIFT messaging platform and using SWIFT Standards. The system went live in December 2006.

About SWIFT
SWIFT is the industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to over 8,100 financial institutions in 208 countries and territories. SWIFT members include banks, broker dealers and investment managers. The broader SWIFT community also encompasses corporates as well as market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade. Over the past ten years, SWIFT message prices have been reduced over 80%, and system availability approaches 5x9 reliability - 99.999% of uptime.

For more information, please refer to www.swift.com.

Media queries:
Contact: Mr. Liew Kim Siong/Vikki Tan
Phone: (65) 6323 7377
E-mail: kimsiong.liew@upstreamasia.com / vikki.tan@upstreamasia.com

APPENDIX A

Figure 1.1
Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region in terms of FIN messages with 26.8 percent annually.

(Source : SWIFT Annual Report 2007)

Figure 1.2
2007 volume (million)

Asia Pacific recorded 407 million FIN messages in 2007 which translates to
11.6 percent against the rest of the world. Singapore recorded 42 million
FIN messages in 2007, which constituted to approximately 10 percent of the
Asia Pacific figure.

(Source : SWIFT Annual Report 2007)

Table 1.1

Top 25 FIN countries
Rank based on traffic for all users in the country.

# - S/N - Country Traffic (Million) - Growth (%) - Share (%)
1 - United States - 594.07 - 26.3 - 17.0
2 - United Kingdom - 588.81 - 21.6 - 16.8
3 - Germany - 320.27 - 19.2 - 9.1
4 - Belgium - 228.12 - 23.9 - 6.5
5 - France - 165.69 - 10.5 - 4.7
6 - Netherlands - 132.87 - 30.3 - 3.8
7 - Italy - 126.37 - 14.7 - 3.6
8 - Switzerland - 122.75 - 23.8 - 3.5
9 - Luxembourg - 113.58 - 23.5 - 3.2
10 - Japan - 110.98 - 31.7 - 3.2
11 - Australia - 68.22 - 36.0 - 1.9
12 - Hong Kong - 60.47 - 23.0 - 1.7
13 - Spain - 59.16 - 16.6 - 1.7
14 - Sweden - 57.37 - 25.2 - 1.6
15 - South Africa - 52.75 - 15.0 - 1.5
16 - Canada - 50.68 - 20.5 - 1.4
17 - Finland - 44.02 - 45.3 - 1.3
18 - Austria - 43.23 - 2.9 - 1.2
19 - Singapore - 42.43 - 44.3 - 1.2
20 - Norway - 42.29 - 40.5 - 1.2
21 - Denmark - 37.16 - 31.9 - 1.1
22 - Republic of Korea - 26.23 - 15.3 - 0.7
23 - Russia - 24.43 - 19.0 - 0.7
24 - Ireland - 21.07 - 20.7 - 0.6
25 - Greece - 20.62 - 12.9 - 0.6
26 - Others - 349.52 - 17.0 - 10.0
# -TOTAL - 3,501.16 - 22.2 - 100.0

(Source : SWIFT Annual Report 2007)

Table 1.2

Members, users and FIN traffic by country or territory

# - S/N - Country Member banks - Institutions connected - Messages sent (thousands) - Messages received (thousands) - Growth sent & received vs 2006 (%)
1 - Australia - 11 - 88 - 68,220 - 58,428 - 32.22
2 - Bangladesh - 22 - 46 - 1,298 - 4,127 - 18.7
3 - Bhutan - 0 - 3 - 14 - 27 - 8.8
4 - Brunei Darussalam - 1 - 8 - 140 - 89 - 4.9
5 - Cambodia - 5 - 18 - 150 - 254 - 26.0
6 - China - 40 - 215 - 18,398 - 48,477 - 16.3
7 - Cook Islands - 0 - 2 - 20 - 22 - 0.4
8 - Fiji - 1 - 6 - 180 - 256 - 11.7
9 - Hong Kong - 25 - 211 - 60,470 - 58,252 - 21.9
10 - India - 45 - 91 - 11,769 - 15,913 - 16.1
11 - Indonesia - 28 - 63 - 8,841 - 9,000 - 7.5
12 - Japan - 122 - 257 - 110,985 - 86,337 - 32.3
13 - Kirbati - 0 - 1 - 4 - 5 - 0.4
14 - Korea, North - 10 - 18 - 19 - 20 - -16.3
15 - Korea, Republic of - 19 - 68 - 26,226 - 17,270 - 13.7
16 - Laos (Lao People DR) - 1 - 6 - 35 - 70 - 15.6
17 - Macau - 4 - 24 - 757 - 907 - 10.4
18 - Malaysia - 12 - 52 - 11,048 - 5,665 - 7.7
19 - Maldives - 1 - 6 - 128 - 123 - 15.0
20 - Myanmar - 2 - 4 - 105 - 82 - 9.4
21 - Nepal - 6 - 20 - 309 - 424 - 23.4
22 - New Zealand - 5 - 16 - 10,181 - 9,381 - 29.4
23 - Papau New Guinea - 3 - 5 - 196 - 121 - 7.9
24 - Philippines - 17 - 47 - 4,316 - 6,007 - 12.0
25 - Samoa - 1 - 5 - 30 - 37 - -16.7
26 - Singapore - 8 - 161 - 42,160 - 43,160 - 43.1
27 - Solomon Islands - 1 - 4 - 52 - 38 - 7.9
28 - Sri Lanka - 9 - 34 - 2,817 - 3,146 - 15.9
29 - Taiwan - 32 - 76 - 14,974 - 17,173 - 11.7
30 - Thailand - 11 - 34 - 10,932 - 11,366 - 4.5
31 - Timor-Leste - 0 - 2 - 12 - 10 - 45.9
32 - Tonga - 1 - 3 - 39 - 40 - 24.2
33 - Tuvalu - 0 - 1 - 4 - 5 - 194.8
34 - Vanuatu - 0 - 4 - 48 - 68 - -14.8
35 - Vietnam - 11 - 62 - 2,252 - 2,994 - 25.8
# - Total Asia Pacific - 454 - 1,661 - 407,399 - 399,295 - 24.8

(Source : SWIFT Annual Report 2007)