Former Citibank Singapore retail banking head due to join Grab-Singtel entity

FORMER Citibank Singapore's head of retail banking Charles Wong is due to join the Grab-Singtel entity that is bidding for a digital full bank in Singapore, BT understands.

It is understood that Mr Wong, a veteran banker in the retail banking space, is likely to play a key role in the digital full bank, if the Grab-Singtel consortium secures the licence.

Mr Wong had resigned from the US bank in February after more than 20 years at Citibank, where he spent nearly five years in his last role as head of retail banking at Citibank Singapore. He was credited for bringing about a strong turnaround of the business, leading the unit to deliver consistent double-digit growth.

Grab Holdings and Singtel have applied for a digital full bank licence, with Grab holding a 60 per cent stake in the proposed consortium, with the telco giant holding 40 per cent. Both partners see financial services as a natural extension of their core businesses, senior executives from Grab and Singtel told BT in December.

Grab itself has already made key hires to ramp up its push into financial services. It earlier hired a former veteran from investment powerhouse BlackRock, Philip Chew, to run Grab's investment and new businesses unit. Grab has also recently hired Leslie Teo, former GIC chief economist, to head up its data science team, with the aim of looking at how to better price financial products.

Grab had told BT in November that it is moving to tap the trillion-dollar wealth market across South-east Asia by offering low-cost investment products. Grab will, from the first half of this year, offer a handful of cash products - that is, money-market funds - here, with more complex products to follow. Grab has a user base of some 166 million across the region, and operates the dominant wallet in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, Grab had told BT in November.

It has also rolled out microinsurance products, and an undisclosed number of loans to several small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore alone via its joint venture with Japanese financial services group Credit Saison. The fintech has not disclosed the size of its SME loan book in Singapore, or a target size for its SME financing business.

Singtel - which expects to wield substantial influence even with a 40-per-cent stake in the consortium - also has a unique benefit it can bring to the table: it should be able to bring cybersecurity expertise via its cybersecurity unit to its banking business.

Singtel is Singapore's largest telco, though most of its earnings are derived from foreign countries. It has a customer base of more than 700 million across the region, including in the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Both Grab and Singtel have not declared their regional ambitions for digital banking, saying it was "too early". But the new digital full bank in Singapore proposed by Grab and Singtel will shy from cash burn, while driving down the cost to target those deemed "underbanked" even in this mature market, they had said.

Other applicants for the digital full bank include Shopee's parent Sea Ltd, a consortium led by gaming company Razer that includes founders of Sheng Siong as partners, and a six-member consortium led by OSIM founder Ron Sim's private investment vehicle V3 Group and partnered by stored-value card operator EZ-Link.

Up to two successful applicants for the digital full bank in Singapore will be announced in the middle of this year.