DBS switched on for Suzhou start-ups
Singapore’s DBS Bank is certainly not one to sit still and its latest effort is to look for more fintech action in Suzhou in eastern China.
Wants more for Sino-Singapore relations
The bank has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Suzhou Industrial Park Administration Committee (SIPAC) to “support the growth and innovation of financial services” in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP).
In essence, it wants to work with tech start-ups and firms. DBS says financial areas “earmarked for development” include capital markets, cash management, settlement, and trade finance.
Lim Chu Chong, head of institutional banking, DBS Bank (China), says: “With China continuing to open up, we view our collaboration with SIPAC as a way to forge stronger Sino-Singapore relations, and as an avenue to deepen the bank’s services and offerings to better serve our clients.”
DBS explains that it was the first Singapore bank to set up operations in the SIP in 2007. Located in Jiangsu Province, the park is a cooperation project between the governments of China and Singapore. It was approved by the State Council in February 1994.
In another development, DBS appointed Sriram Muthukrishnan as group head of global transaction services (GTS) trade product management. He joins from HSBC and will take charge of driving digital initiatives across the bank’s trade products and services,
In a new role, the bank has appointed Navinder Duggal as the GTS-SME head with effect from July this year. It only went public on this yesterday (20 November). This new role “emphasises the bank’s commitment towards growing its market share in the SME segment”.
MoUs and stories about new faces can be ten a penny (or dime a dozen if you prefer), but DBS has been doing fairly well this year.
Recent examples include working on a blockchain payments platform for the supply chain; action in Hong Kong for blockchain trade finance; and being part of Singapore unveiling the world’s first unified payment QR code.
