SINGAPORE – A $30 million grant aimed at boosting the cyber resilience of Singapore’s financial sector and developing local talent in the field of cyber security was launched on Monday (Dec 3).

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced details of the new Cybersecurity Capabilities Grant in a statement on Monday.

The grant will support the development of advanced cyber security functions, such as security operations, cyber threat surveillance and intelligence gathering, computer forensics, malware research and analysis, and cyber threat hunting.

It will co-fund up to 50 per cent of qualifying expenses, capped at $3 million for financial institutions for them to establish global or regional cyber security centres of excellence here.

It will also support financial institutions with key global or regional cyber security functions and operations in expanding their cyber security capabilities locally.

MAS said that the grant will be funded under the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme, which it introduced in 2015 to encourage innovation in the financial sector.

The grant will also enable local employees to attend cyber security-related training programmes.

This will help to attract more cyber security professionals and expand the local talent pool in the financial sector, MAS said.

MAS chief cyber security officer Tan Yeow Seng said that the Singapore financial sector has made significant progress in recent years in building up cyber resilience and managing cyber risk.

“But the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve and we have to constantly strengthen our cyber capabilities,” he added.

Applications for the grant are now open for financial institutions.

Interested financial institutions can write to [email protected] for more information, the statement added.

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