What it is
The currency of Singapore, a trading and financial centre whose trade is far larger than its own economy. Its monetary policy works through the exchange rate, not through an interest rate.
Who issues it
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is both central bank and financial regulator. It steers the Singapore dollar against a basket of the currencies of its main trading partners, inside a band whose position it does not publish.
How it is commonly described
- Managed or pegged
- Its exchange rate is steered or fixed by the authorities and does not float freely.
Because so much of what Singapore consumes is imported, the authority judges that the exchange rate has more effect on prices than interest rates would. It sets the slope, width and centre of the band and lets interest rates follow from that.
These are descriptions people use, drawn from how the currency has commonly behaved. They are not promises about how it will behave.
What typically moves it
- The Monetary Authority’s policy statements on the slope, width and centre of the band
- World trade, and demand for electronics in particular
- The general direction of the US dollar and of other Asian currencies
- Inflation in Singapore, which the policy exists to contain
These are the things people who follow this currency usually watch. They explain how the market works; they do not say what the exchange rate will do next.
The scheduled releases to know
- Monetary Policy StatementPublished by Monetary Authority of Singapore
- Consumer Price Index, with the Authority’s core measurePublished by Singapore Department of StatisticsExplainer: CPI
- Gross Domestic Product, beginning with the advance estimatePublished by Ministry of Trade and IndustryExplainer: GDP
- Non-oil domestic exportsPublished by Enterprise Singapore
No dates or figures are shown here: each publisher’s own calendar is the authority. The explainers are in Economic Events; a release without a link has no explainer on this site yet.
Its main session
Asia (Singapore hours). Singapore is one of the principal centres of the Asian trading day and a major foreign-exchange centre in its own right.
At GIO4X
A short history
The Singapore dollar was first issued in 1967, after the shared currency arrangement with Malaysia and Brunei ended. Under an agreement of the same year it remains interchangeable with the Brunei dollar. The Monetary Authority of Singapore was established in 1971 and has centred its policy on the exchange rate since 1981.
Words worth knowing
A reference page. Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade. It gives no exchange rate, no interest rate and no forecast.