Publishing a remuneration figure may satisfy a disclosure requirement, but it does not necessarily tell stakeholders whether leadership pay is justified. Singapore’s latest Directorship Report highlights why meaningful transparency requires more than a number — it requires clarity on how pay is structured, linked to performance and ultimately determined.
Singapore — More than two years after SGX made individual director remuneration disclosure mandatory for listed companies, the Singapore Institute of Directors has found that while compliance has more than doubled, a meaningful gap remains between disclosing a number and providing the information stakeholders need to assess whether leadership is being rewarded appropriately.
The sixth edition of SID’s Singapore Directorship Report, released in November 2025, analysed annual reports from 615 SGX-listed companies as at end-2024. It found that 67.8 percent of companies had disclosed their directors’ exact remuneration, up from 27.8 percent at the end-2022. However, SID noted that even among compliant companies, there remains limited visibility into how remuneration is structured and how it aligns with performance outcomes. SID specifically called for boards to go beyond disclosing a single figure and provide what it described as line-by-line clarity: the breakdown of fixed pay, variable pay, equity-based components, benefits and one-off elements, alongside an explanation of the performance metrics attached to variable pay, how they were weighted and how actual outcomes compared to the targets that were set.
The principle SID is raising is worth separating from the specific compliance regime it applies to. A board can technically satisfy a transparency requirement by disclosing a number while still giving members, shareholders or stakeholders no meaningful ability to understand how leadership pay is determined or whether it reflects actual performance. SID describes this as a gap between disclosure and accountability.
The governance structures of associations and listed companies differ in important ways, and the same disclosure rules do not automatically apply. But the underlying principle translates directly. If an association provides members with a single figure for executive remuneration, does that give members sufficient information to understand how pay is structured, what performance it is intended to reward and whether actual outcomes reflected the targets that were set? If not, the board may be producing transparency without the substance of accountability.
