Drew & Napier launches Guide to Change of Control and Regulatory Variations for MAS- and SFC-Regulated Financial Institutions

04 Feb 2026

We are pleased to share our latest publication: "Guide to Change of Control and Regulatory Variations for MAS- and SFC- Regulated Financial Institutions", co-authored by Directors Grace Chong, Priscilla Wang, Tan Jin Wei and Alex Goh, and Senior Associate Theodore Tay.

Global financial services M&A activity has seen a clear rebound in 2025, driven not by a broad increase in deal volume, but by materially higher aggregate deal values and increased transaction complexity. Across Asia and Europe, these developments have translated into a bifurcation of transaction types; from capability-driven acquisitions (e.g. in payment infrastructure, data, and digital asset-adjacent platforms) to consolidation transactions driven by scale, funding resilience, governance rationalisation, and regulatory capital optimisation. Given the increasingly cross-border nature of such transactions which frequently involve regulated entities operating across multiple supervisory regimes, Singapore and Hong Kong continue to feature prominently as trusted financial centres and preferred regional platforms for regulated financial institutions.

This guide is designed to provide a practical overview of the regulatory landscape governing change of control and licence variations under both the Singapore and Hong Kong regimes, and is intended to assist sponsors, acquirers, target entities and their boards as well as deal/advisory teams in anticipating regulatory issues early and structuring transactions in a manner aligned with supervisory expectations. It will explain why such applications are rarely mechanical or uniform across licence categories or jurisdictions, and why outcomes are highly fact-sensitive, turning on transaction structure, governance arrangements, influence and evolving risk profiles.

Download the Guide here.