The Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore (IBF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today set out 12 technical skills and competencies needed for individuals to perform various roles in sustainable finance (see Annex for details).

2.   The Sustainable Finance Technical Skills and Competencies (SF TSCs) are part of the IBF Skills Framework for Financial Services, which provides information on occupations and job roles, career pathways, and training programmes for skills upgrading and mastery.  The SF TSCs cover a range of thematic and functional knowledge topics.

• Thematic topics include climate change policy developments, natural capital, green taxonomies, carbon markets and decarbonisation strategies.
• Functional knowledge topics cover how sustainability is applied across major functions in the financial sector, such as sustainability risk management, sustainability reporting, sustainable investment management, and sustainable insurance and re-insurance solutions.
  
  

3.    Financial institutions and training providers are strongly encouraged to design training programmes around the SF TSCs. Banks, asset managers and insurers have the flexibility to adopt SF TSCs relevant to their employees and organisation. IBF will work closely with the industry to curate high quality training programmes, and onboard training providers whose curriculum are aligned with the SF TSCs. Participants who enrol in IBF-accredited training programmes can defray up to 90% of training expenses ^[1] under the IBF-Standards Training Scheme grant.

4.     The SF TSCs will be reviewed periodically to take account of evolving developments and needs in sustainable finance. Future enhancements could include raising the competency standards for specific roles and introducing more SF TSCs for new job roles.

5.      Mr Leong Sing Chiong, Deputy Managing Director (Markets and Development), MAS said, "We are seeing strong and growing demand for sustainable finance talent as Singapore plays a larger role as a sustainable finance hub for the region. The launch of the SF TSCs today is a critical step in building a deep talent pool in sustainable finance, and I encourage all financial institutions to use them as a benchmark to achieve excellence in sustainable finance skills and talent development."

6.      Mr Ng Nam Sin, Chief Executive Officer, IBF said "Developing sustainable finance skills and talent for the financial service industry is imperative and the addition of the 12 sustainable finance skills will ensure finance services professionals possess up-to-date skills and knowledge in sustainability. This will greatly support financial institutions as they build sustainability capabilities to serve the growing needs of Singapore and the region."

[1] The Scheme provides funding for training accredited under the Skills Framework for Financial Services. More details are available here.

ANNEX

The 12 SF TSCs outline the requisite knowledge, competencies and abilities that an individual would need to possess and are designed across three proficiency levels. A short description of each SF TSC is set out in the table below. More details of the 12 SF TSCs can be found within this link.