Amritpal Singh Sidhu - Assistant Director, Technology & Cyber Risk Supervision Mid-Career Professional, joined in 2015
I graduated from SMU with a BSc (Information Systems and Law) before starting out as an IT Auditor in the private sector. Since joining MAS in 2015, I have been working with my colleagues in TCRD where we perform assessments on the technology risk management practices of our financial institutions. We also formulate policies and strategies to build cyber resilience in the financial sector.
My experience in MAS has been exciting and diverse. I perform technology risk focused inspections on financial institutions from the capital markets and payments sectors. I also participate in international working groups that develop international standards and guidance on technology and cyber risk. I have also been involved in numerous intra- and inter-agency projects, gaining a better appreciation about the diverse services and initiatives that the public sector supports.
Being a part of the MAS family is not all work and no play! We also have inter-department games and I have been privileged to be able to participate in the annual Inter-Central Bank Games where we have friendly sports competitions while forging strong ties with peer regulators in the region. In my free time, I enjoy running and rock climbing, contributing to community service work, as well as reading up on current affairs, technology trends, and manga.
Due to the varied nature of work done by TCRD, we have to be nimble and adapt quickly to new IT practices and business trends that can impact our approach to regulating and supervising FIs. We also regularly review our workflows to determine if applying a tool or redesigning the work process would enable more efficient and effective outcomes. For example, we developed a toolkit that would enable partner departments’ supervisors who are not technology specialists to perform assessments on the technology risk posture of FIs in their portfolios.
Also, in the last two years, with the fast evolving cyber landscape birthing new threats at a rapid pace, we worked together with the IT Department to build the Financial Sector Security Operations Centre where we conduct research and surveillance through a Cyber Threat Intelligence Management System to analyse both open and closed source cyber threat intelligence which include news and alerts on the latest hacking tools and techniques as well as cyber security solutions.
Moving forward, we are looking into new assessment techniques that take advantage of insights that data analytics tools and techniques can provide us as we stay abreast with technology adoption trends and identify potential risks in the financial sector.