Singapore’s central bank kept its monetary policy settings unchanged for a third straight time amid expectations for inflation to ease only later this year — a decision that suggests any easing could be farther down the road, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses the exchange rate as its main policy tool rather than interest rates, maintained the slope, width, and center of the currency band, it said in a statement Monday. The move will keep the local dollar on an appreciating path to blunt imported price gains.

Terraform Labs, the company behind the stablecoin TerraUSD, which collapsed and roiled cryptocurrency markets in 2022, filed for chapter 11 protection, according to court papers filed on Sunday, Reuters reported. Singapore-based Terraform Labs, in a filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, listed assets and liabilities in the range of $100-$500 million. Terraform Labs said it would meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors during the Chapter 11 case without requiring additional financing. It also plans to continue Web3 offerings expansion.

Singapore's economy grew 2.8% in the fourth quarter year-on-year, preliminary government data showed on Tuesday, faster than some economists expected and helped by improvements in construction and manufacturing, Reuters reported. The fourth quarter growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was faster than the 1% expansion in the third quarter of 2023. For the full year of 2023, Singapore's economy grew 1.2%, moderating from the 3.6% growth in 2022.

He may be headed to prison next year after pleading guilty to U.S. criminal charges in November, yet 2023 held a silver lining for former Binance Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao: His estimated wealth ballooned by almost $25 billion this year, Bloomberg News reported. Toward the end of a year when Bitcoin rebounded more than 160% following a market collapse in 2022, Zhao tops a list of crypto entrepreneurs who saw their estimated net worth surge in 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Coinbase Global Inc.

Three Arrows Capital co-founder Su Zhu for the first time faced questioning in a Singapore court about the crypto fund’s collapse, giving liquidators their best chance yet to gather information as they seek to recoup billions of dollars for creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The two-day court hearing this week required Zhu to respond to lawyers for the liquidator, Teneo, people familiar with the matter said. The lawyers sought details including how the fund failed and the whereabouts of assets, the people said, asking not to be named as the proceedings were private.

Singapore awarded a batch of in-principle license approvals to stablecoin issuers, intensifying the competition among Asian financial hubs for a slice of a key crypto segment with a market value of $127 billion, Bloomberg News reported. The approvals for Paxos Digital Singapore Pte and StraitsX open up a pathway for issuing such tokens under regulatory oversight. Stablecoins are typically pegged 1-1 to major currencies and backed by reserves like cash and bonds.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Thursday told DBS Group Holdings' unit DBS Bank and Citibank Singapore to conduct a thorough investigation after they failed to recover their systems fully within a required timeframe during an unscheduled outage on Oct. 14, Reuters reported. The central bank said unscheduled downtime for a critical system that affects a bank's operations or service to customers must not exceed four hours within any 12-month period. On Saturday Oct. 14, DBS's and Citibank's online banking and payment services went offline from around 3 p.m.

Singapore’s financial regulator will conduct an on-site inspection of Credit Suisse Group AG after at least one of its customers was charged for money laundering in a scandal that has rocked the city-state, Bloomberg News reported. The local unit of Credit Suisse will be among banks the Monetary Authority of Singapore plans to examine to determine whether they properly handled the monitoring of wealthy clients. Officials from the regulator are set to interview personnel and review documents within weeks.

Three Arrows Capital co-founder Su Zhu ended up in jail in Singapore after liquidators decided to apply maximum pressure following months of sparring over locating the failed crypto hedge fund’s assets, Bloomberg News reported. Days after securing a Singapore court order carrying a four-month prison term for failing to cooperate with the task of winding up the fund, liquidators tipped police off on Sept. 29 that Zhu was headed to Changi Airport.