Temasek, DBS, JPMorgan joint venture Partior names new CEO, CTO

A NEWLY-CREATED joint venture between Temasek and banks DBS and JPMorgan has appointed Jason Thompson as its chief executive and Dmitry Avramenko as its new chief technology officer (CTO).

Singapore-headquartered Partior is a blockchain-based peer-to-peer interbank clearing and settlement network which supports the real-time settlement of wholesale banking payments in multiple currencies, it said in a press statement on Friday.

The platform was conceived during Project Ubin, a collaborative project between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the financial industry. Project Ubin was exploring the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology for the clearance and settlement of payments and securities.

In his new role, Mr Thompson will lead Partior and chart its growth strategy while based in Singapore. He will also be responsible for formulating strategies for expansion and product offerings, and will work closely with Partior's board of directors, the company said.

He has over two decades of leadership experience in the financial services sector, having held key positions in Grab Financial and Indonesia consumer and digital wallet OVO. Before his stint at both companies, Mr Thompson was Euronet's senior managing director, where he ran businesses across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Partior's board comprises representatives from DBS, JPMorgan and Temasek, namely DBS group head of global transaction services Lim Soon Chong, JPMorgan Onyx's chief executive Umar Farooq, and Temasek managing director Pradyumna Agrawal.

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Newly-appointed CTO Mr Avramenko will lead the development of Partior's platform. He joins Partior from HSBC Hong Kong's social payment platform PayMe, an e-wallet.

Before HSBC, he was head of cloud architecture and infrastructure at Standard Chartered, and held various IT leadership roles within Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and more.

Partior is working to establish offices in London, New York and Beijing to serve a global customer base. It will actively engage leading banks to join the platform and establish the scale needed to benefit the industry, it said.

For starters, it will focus on facilitating flows primarily in both US dollars and Singapore dollars, with the intent of expanding service offerings to additional currencies.