Assistant Vice President, Distribution Governance and Controls

SINGAPORE LIFE LTD.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Singlife is seeking a Distribution Governance & Controls operations professional to support regulatory compliance, risk management, and audit outcomes across distribution channels.

You will work with Compliance, Legal, and Privacy teams to maintain control frameworks, manage complaints, data protection, and business continuity, ensuring accurate records and timely regulatory reporting.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3 years of experience in financial services operations or regulatory compliance.
• Strong attention to detail and documentation discipline.
• Ability to work with multiple stakeholders and manage routine tasks.
• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance environments is an advantage.

Responsibilities

• Implement regulatory requirements affecting Distribution and review control effectiveness.
• Maintain Regulatory Obligation Map and controls for Distribution.
• Escalate potential breaches to SLT per guidelines and regulatory expectations.
• Support compliance reviews, audits, and regulatory submissions across the function.
• Assist Data Protection Officer with data incidents and documentation.
• BCM coordination with Group BCM to ensure Distribution fulfilment.

Skills

Attention to detail

Documentation discipline

Stakeholder management

Regulatory compliance familiarity

Education

Diploma or degree in Business, Finance, Operations

Job description

Singlife is a leading homegrown financial services company, offering consumers a better way to financial freedom. Through innovative, technology-enabled solutions and a wide range of products and services, Singlife provides consumers control over their financial wellbeing at every stage of their lives.

In addition to a comprehensive suite of insurance plans, employee benefits, partnerships with financial adviser channels and bancassurance, Singlife offers investment and advisory solutions through its GROW with Singlife platform. It also offers the Singlife Account, a mobile-first insurance savings plan.

Singlife is the exclusive insurance provider for the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Officers Group Insurance Scheme. Singlife is also an official signatory of the United Nations Principles for Sustainable Insurance and the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, affirming its commitment to finding a better way to sustainability.

The merger of Aviva Singapore and Singlife was announced in September 2020 and created one of the largest homegrown financial services companies in Singapore in a deal valued atS$3.2 billion. It was the largest insurance deal in Singapore at the time.

Singlife was subsequently acquired by Sumitomo Life in March 2024, one of Japan’s leading life insurers, which valued Singlife at S$4.6 billion, making the transaction one of the largest insurance deals in Southeast Asia.

Role Purpose

The role supports the Distribution Governance & Controls function by providing operational execution and support across controls‑related activities, contributing to effective risk management, regulatory compliance, and robust audit outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Internal Controls & Governance Support

• Ensure new regulatory requirements impacting Distribution and associated controls are implemented. This includes conducting regular reviews of the effectiveness of controls in Distribution.
• Maintain an up-to-date Regulatory Obligation Map with controls for Distribution.
• Ensure that potential control gaps, failures or breaches that could or have already resulted in a regulatory breach are escalated to relevant SLT in accordance with issued guidelines.
• Support relevant teams to ensure that current and planned business operations are within Distribution’s risk appetite.
• Validate due diligence reviews on business partners, intermediaries, and end‑clients in line with internal policies and regulatory requirements. This includes review and validation of relevant information and documentation as required for the due diligence assessment.
• Provide controls support that extends to all sales channels and marketing team under Distribution. This includes approval reviews of all distribution contracts, sales campaigns, leads campaigns, marketing initiatives etc. and liaising with Legal, Compliance and Privacy teams to coordinate approvals of all contracts and collaterals.
• Support coordination of regulatory submissions, audits, and internal compliance reviews.
• Assist with maintenance of compliance registers, intermediaries register, trackers, and documentation (e.g. policies, attestations, breach logs).

Complaints Management

• Oversight of all complaints (Market Conduct and Non-Market Conduct complaints except complaints relating to claims, policy issuance, Underwriting outcomes and payments) received against sales of Singlife products by distribution partners (FA and Banca). This involves working with Singlife Customer Service (CS), Compliance and distribution partners on complaints handling.
• Maintain a register of all complaints, directing complaints to relevant partners, working with partners to track complaint outcomes, conducting trend analysis and providing complaints reports to senior management in forums such as FDC, ORC etc.

Data Protection Support

• Support the Data Protection Officer (DPO) to meet data protection obligations by coordinating responses to internal queries and requests and maintaining required documentation and evidence.
• Support investigation, logging, and follow‑up of data incidents or potential breaches, including information gathering for assessment and reporting.
• Promote good data handling practices within Distribution.

Customer& Business Fulfilment

• Check on customer and business‑partner fulfilment activities carried out by governance team.
• Oversee management of fulfilment enquiries, discrepancies, and exceptions, escalating issues where required.
• Ensure that complete, accurate, and auditable records of fulfilment and payment activities are maintained.

Business Continuity Management(BCM)

• Serve as BCM coordinator for Distribution, working with Group BCM team on all BCM requirements and ensuring Distribution fulfilment.

Key Requirements

• Diploma or degree in Business, Finance, Operations, or a related discipline.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in financial services operations or a Regulatory Compliance function is preferred.
• Strong attention to detail, documentation discipline, and control awareness. Ability to work with multiple stakeholders and manage routine operational tasks reliably.
• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance environments is an advantage.