Singapore - Singapore's Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam assured the public Wednesday that the city state's banking system was not in trouble despite the current global financial crisis.

The city state's de facto central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has responded to the crisis in a measured way and as such there was no need to provide guarantees for local banks, he said.

He pointed out that confidence was still high in Singapore's financial system despite the global financial problems.

"There is no lack of confidence in our system, and that is something that the market acknowledges. But we are studying the implications of Hong Kong and a few other countries having moved this way," the Channel News Asia quoted the minister as saying.

"But we have been very alert and vigilant to make sure that the financial system continues to function in an orderly fashion so as to make sure that the economy as a whole is able to go through this crisis without too much damage."

However, he warned that the ongoing financial crisis is not going to be short-term. (dpa)