Singapore maintains a live set of sanctions lists that its financial institutions and other regulated businesses must screen customers against. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) maintains these lists of designated individuals and entities as the operational core of the country’s Targeted Financial Sanctions system.
On 14 August 2026, the UN Security Council committee that oversees the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al Qaida sanctions list amended four of its entries, three individuals and one entity: the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan (ISIL-K). The changes updated details on entries that are already subject to an asset freeze, a travel ban and an arms embargo. Because Singapore gives effect to these UN lists domestically, a UN update feeds through to the obligations firms carry here.
What Targeted Financial Sanctions are
As the Monetary Authority of Singapore explains, Targeted Financial Sanctions are measures aimed at named individuals and entities rather than at whole countries or sectors. In Singapore, they implement United Nations Security Council resolutions against individuals and entities identified as a threat to international peace and security, ranging from terrorism financing (CFT) to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the concern behind the measures on Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The defining feature is that the target is a specific designated person: once someone is on a list, the restrictions attach to them by name.
The legal framework
Singapore’s Targeted Financial Sanctions obligations sit across several statutes. The measures are given effect through regulations made under four primary Acts:
- the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022
- the Variable Capital Companies Act 2018
- the United Nations Act 2001
- the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act 2002
In practice, these take the form of country-specific instruments such as the Financial Services and Markets (Sanctions and Freezing of Assets of Persons) Regulations 2023, which apply to designations connected to jurisdictions such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran, together with the Variable Capital Companies (Sanctions and Freezing of Assets of Persons) Regulations 2020.
The MAS page organises its lists by the UN sanctions programme each one flows from. They include the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea list (UN 1718), the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al Qaida list, the 1988 Taliban list, the Democratic Republic of the Congo list (UN 1533), the Iran list (UN 1737) and the Libya list, together with persons named in the First Schedule to the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act.
What firms actually have to do
MAS requires financial institutions to screen their customers, including beneficial owners, against the United Nations lists before entering into a business relationship or providing a financial service. Where a match is found, the practical duties are to freeze the assets of the designated person, to refrain from dealing with them or making funds or economic resources available to them, and to report the position to the authorities.
For regulated financial institutions, MAS notices and guidelines back those duties and require sanctions screening to be built into onboarding and ongoing monitoring, so a name added to a list is caught not only for new customers but across the existing book.
Why it matters
The 14 August update reminds us that sanctions lists are not static reference data. An amendment at the UN, even one that adds no new names, can change the identifying details a screening system relies on to make a match, and a stale list is a compliance risk in itself.
