New Regulations for SMS in Singapore

The regulatory authority in Singapore have passed new rules and regulations that have been brought in to effect immediately, all clients sending bulk and marketing SMS must take immediate action.

These rules now fully ban the marketing of moneylenders via SMS, and it is reported as being taken extremely seriously with some police investigations already taking place. The new rules add these marketing exclusions to the existing Moneylenders Act, and specifically states in 2.2 of the directive:

Notwithstanding paragraph 2.1, the following advertising channels are not permitted:

Advertisements in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) messages and e-mails sent to the general public, patrons of the licensee or former patrons of the licensee.

The full working of the directive can be viewed here:

https://www.mlaw.gov.sg/content/dam/minlaw/rom/Moneylenders/Directions

Clients must ensure that in absolutely no circumstance should they or their clients send SMS that are directed to Singapore numbers which contact this kind of content. While we are working closely with operator partners in order to use firewall rules to proactively block these kind of messages before they are submitted for delivery, it is ultimately the responsibility of clients to ensure they comply with all local regulations.

If you have any questions please feel free toContact us.