A Singapore central bank senior official reassured Singaporeans yesterday that the city-state's financial institutions "are sound and operating normally."

Speaking at the "Money Sense" seminar, Heng Swee Keat, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said, one reason is Singapore does not have subprime mortgages that are originated here.

"Banks and insurance companies in Singapore have limited exposures to such assets or to the banks that have failed."

The second reason is, he said, the MAS has been conservative intheir approach to the supervision of financial institutions, whoseassets must exceed liabilities by a good margin.

The MAS also require the financial institutions to hold sufficient capital, he added.

"Third, unlike banks elsewhere that face serious problems of liquidity, depositors and investors here maintain a high level of confidence in our financial institutions. We are also strict about the spreading of rumors," he said.

"Money Sense" is a program designed to help Singaporeans understand money and investment matters.

According to a local TV Channel News Asia report, Singapore's labor chief Lim Swee Say told local media during the seminar that workers understand that Singapore's slide into recession is "unavoidable" because the country is part of the global financial system.

Singapore is in a technical recession after the economy slipped into negative territory for the second quarter in a row. The government on Friday revised down its 2008 growth forecast to around 3 percent from a previous estimate of 4 to 5 percent.