StanChart veteran named CEO of Singapore digital bank venture with NTUC

Singapore

DWAIPAYAN Sadhu, Standard Chartered (StanChart) Singapore's head of consumer, private and business banking, has been appointed CEO of StanChart's digital bank venture with NTUC's enterprise arm.

Mr Sadhu, a StanChart veteran, has more than two decades of industry experience spanning wealth management, payments, deposits, consumer lending, and digital banking.

He is currently double-hatting for both roles and will transition to the digital bank CEO later this year, said StanChart.

This comes as StanChart announced on Monday that it will be launching a digital-only bank in Singapore with NTUC Enterprise, joining the four other digital banks here that were awarded licences last year.

The news, which was released as regulatory filings on the London Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange where the bank is listed, came after almost two years since market talk first surfaced back in 2019 on the possible partnership.

The joint venture, known as SC Bank Solutions, was granted a full banking licence by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Dec 30, 2020 - the same month the four other digital banks were awarded their licences. MAS had said that it would award up to five digital bank licences, but only four were announced at the time.

A StanChart subsidiary will take a 60 per cent stake in the venture, worth S$144 million, with the NTUC's enterprise arm taking the remaining 40 per cent stake, worth S$96 million.

A decision on the venture's branding has yet to be decided, said StanChart.

The four earlier announced digital banks are expected to start operations in early 2022.

StanChart said that the joint venture is in an early stage, with a launch date to be announced later.

This follows the launch of StanChart's digital-only Mox Bank brand in Hong Kong last year and amid a boom in fintech investments in South-east Asia.

In response to queries by The Business Times, a StanChart spokesperson said that it was important that its partner "shared the same ethos of client centricity, innovation, and community engagement", adding that NTUC Enterprise is an "established name in Singapore".

NTUC Enterprise is the holding entity and single largest shareholder of the NTUC group of social enterprises, which include FairPrice Group (comprising NTUC FairPrice, NTUC Foodfare, Kopitiam and NTUC Link), NTUC First Campus, NTUC Health, NTUC Income, NTUC LearningHub, Mercatus and MoneyOwl.

"Through this partnership, we look forward to leveraging mutual capabilities and seek out common opportunities for synergies to create better experiences for consumers," said StanChart.

The StanChart-NTUC Enterprise digital bank took a different route to get its licence compared with the other four digital banks. Consumer Internet company Sea and a Grab-Singtel consortium secured the two digital full-bank licences, while the two digital wholesale bank licences were clinched by China's Ant Group and a Greenland Financial-led consortium.

Back in 2020, StanChart was awarded enhanced "Significantly Rooted Foreign Bank" (SRFB) privileges by the MAS, allowing it to secure an additional full bank licence to establish a subsidiary to operate new or alternative business models such as a digital bank.

Through this path, StanChart benefits from a lower minimum paid up capital of S$100 million for the unit that operates the digital-only bank, compared with the eventual requirement of S$1.5 billion for a digital full bank under the latest digital bank requirements.

StanChart is the first domestic systemically important bank to incorporate all its businesses in Singapore, as well as being the first and only bank to be awarded the SRFB status by MAS. Singapore is StanChart's second largest market after Hong Kong.