StanChart reveals fintech innovation and investment unit
(18 January 2018 – Singapore) Standard Chartered has created a new business unit, SC Ventures, to invest in promising fintech startups and accelerate innovation initiatives across the group.
The bank says the new unit will manage its expanding portfolio of holdings and seek out new investment opportunities from across the startup community. The cash element will be pulled from the three-year US$3 billion spend allocated by the bank to invest in new technology in 2015.
A new venture unit will also be established to sponsor and oversee disruptive technologies that are wholly or partially owned by Standard Chartered and to manage participation in collaborative joint ventures.
The bank additionally intends to seek outside help from international consultancies in inculcating a group-wide startup mentality with a particular emphasis on agile client-centric design principles. The effort will be directed from within Standard Chartered's eXcellerator Innovation Lab, established two years ago in Singapore.
SC Ventures will be led by Alex Manson, most recently global head of transaction banking, with a reporting line into the bank's group CIO Michael Gorriz.
Manson said, “In a world otherwise full of technical solutions looking for problems, at Standard Chartered we start with our clients. This is a great opportunity for us to facilitate and catalyse our culture of innovation, working with our clients and colleagues to invent the banking of tomorrow.”
Recent research from East & Partners found that among the world's largest companies, more than 75 percent of corporate treasurers said fintech firms would take market share away from incumbent providers over the next five years. Across China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom, that figure jumped to around 90 percent, while around 1 in 2 firms in Australia and the US were as optimistic of fintech firms’ expansion in market share.
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