Raymond Cheung
Chartered Actuary · CRO · Board Adviser · Singapore
MAS's 12 October 2026 public prospecting safeguards confine roadshows to designated zones and require named supervisors and upfront consent. For Singapore insurers with large tied agency forces, this is a distribution conduct question the board should own, not a compliance memo for the agency office.
Early in my time as a statutory CRO, I asked our agency leadership a simple question: how many roadshow booths did we run last quarter, and who was supervising them? Nobody could tell me. Complaints showed up in my risk report as a single line, a small number on a large base, and the board saw an even shorter version of it. That was when I understood that face-to-face distribution was the part of the business the board had the least line of sight into. [CONFIRM with Raymond: replace with a real episode if possible]
What MAS actually announced
On 12 October 2026, after a public consultation, MAS set out tighter safeguards for public prospecting such as roadshows. Prospecting will be limited to designated zones within business properties rather than open public areas. Firms must appoint suitably qualified individuals to supervise their representatives at these events. Representatives must say upfront that they intend to market financial products, and get the consumer's consent before continuing. On-street canvassing and door-to-door prospecting stay banned. MAS will build the changes into its updated Guidelines on Standards of Conduct for Marketing and Distribution Activities in 2027, followed by a nine-month transition (MAS media release).
Why this is a board issue, not an agency memo
Most insurers will route this to compliance and the agency office, update the roadshow procedures, and report completion to the board sometime in 2028. That misses the point. Roadshows exist because of how we pay and recruit. Activity targets, recruitment drives and short-term sales contests are what put a new representative at a mall booth on a Saturday. If the incentive design rewards the volume of contacts, a supervisor standing nearby will not change the behaviour much.
“The roadshow is not the risk. The incentive scheme that fills the roadshow is the risk.”
The supervision requirement is also a real cost line. Qualified supervisors at every event is a budget and capacity decision, and in a large tied agency force it may quietly cut the number of events. Boards should understand that trade-off before management makes it for them.
What I would ask at the next risk committee
- How many public prospecting events do we run each month, through which channels, and who supervises each one today?
- Which incentive or recruitment campaigns drive event volume, and do any of them reward contact numbers rather than suitable sales?
- How do complaints, free-look cancellations and early lapses on business written at events compare with our other channels?
- Does our risk appetite framework carry a conduct metric for face-to-face distribution, or only for digital?
MAS has given the industry a long runway, which is exactly why boards should use it. The 2025/2026 Enforcement Report is a reminder that MAS asks whether management and the board saw a problem coming, not just whether the procedure was updated. My advice: put distribution conduct on the board risk committee agenda this quarter, while the fix is still cheap.
Common Questions
What are MAS's new public prospecting safeguards in Singapore?
Announced on 12 October 2026, the safeguards limit public prospecting such as roadshows to designated zones within business properties, require firms to appoint suitably qualified supervisors at these events, and require representatives to disclose upfront that they are marketing financial products and obtain consent before continuing. On-street canvassing and door-to-door prospecting remain prohibited.
When do the MAS roadshow rules take effect for Singapore insurers?
MAS will issue updated Guidelines on Standards of Conduct for Marketing and Distribution Activities in 2027, and firms will then have a nine-month transition period to implement the safeguards. In practice, insurers with large agency forces should start mapping their events, supervisors and incentive campaigns now, because the supervision requirement has budget and capacity consequences.
Why should an insurance board care about roadshow conduct?
Because roadshow behaviour is driven by incentive design, recruitment targets and supervision capacity, all of which are board-level decisions about how the insurer distributes. Complaints, cancellations and early lapses from face-to-face channels are conduct risk indicators that belong in the board's risk appetite reporting, not only in the agency office's operating metrics.
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About the author
Raymond Cheung is a Chartered Actuary, C-suite executive and board adviser with more than 20 years of experience across Asia in risk management, insurance, ESG and corporate governance. He is the CEO of CER Consultancy and an accredited trainer at SMU Academy and the Singapore College of Insurance.