New role created to harness rapidly advancing data science
(15 June 2015 – Singapore) Standard Chartered has created a new role, based in Singapore to help shape the Bank’s strategic innovation agenda across its global network by harnessing a range of new technologies and rapidly advancing data science.
From 1 July 2015, Standard Chartered’s Group head of Risk Innovation, Anju Patwardhan, has been appointed as the Bank’s first Group chief innovation officer.
Patwardhan will be based in Singapore and become a member of Standard Chartered’s Technology and Operations Management Group.
She will report directly to the incoming Group chief information officer, Dr Michael Gorriz.
Patwardhan will also oversee SC Studios, the Bank’s innovation outpost strategically positioned in San Francisco to scout for the Silicon Valley’s latest technology trends and tap the dynamic startup ecosystem.
This new role will enable Patwardhan to build upon the Bank’s excellent progress in the digital space, existing examples include the Bank being named World’s Best Consumer Internet Bank by Global Finance magazine for four consecutive years for excellence in online and mobile banking.
Through SC Studios, the Bank identified and worked with a Silicon Valley data analytics startup to co-create an entirely new economic index for Nigeria using crowdsourced smartphone data collection.
Clients are now using the Nigeria Consumer Price Tracker to track, in real time, previously unavailable consumer price changes.
Multi-award winning innovation from the Bank, Straight2Bank Mobile Wallet, is enabling NGOs such as Jhpiego, an international health non-profit affiliated with John Hopkins University, to instantly and safely disburse funds to its beneficiaries in Africa previously deprived of access to basic financial services due to infrastructure and economic challenges.
Jan Verplancke, Group chief information officer, said: “Anju is a distinguished banker with extensive international financial services experience and I’m delighted to announce her appointment as Standard Chartered’s Group Chief Innovation Officer.
“She will consolidate the excellent progress the Bank has already made and take it to the next level to realise our aspiration of being digital by design.”
Patwardhan brings more than 20 years of international financial services experience to the role and has been acknowledged by many industry bodies.
She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Banking and Finance, the nation’s highest financial services industry accolade, and a Fellow of the Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics at Singapore Management University - the leading economics think tank in Asia.
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