Singapore, 13 November 2018 — The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (“ICBC”) Singapore branch has showcased at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 “Connecting Africa”, a cross-border cash management service developed with Standard Bank.
As one of ICBC Group’s six largest cash management hubs in the world, ICBC Singapore’s collaboration with Standard Bank, the largest bank in Africa, is aimed at meeting the growing needs for cross-border operations and investment of companies with an African footprint. The cross-border cash management service provides companies with integrated financial services such as account management, payment and payroll management, wealth management and risk management. It enables Singapore enterprises to centralize fund management of multiple accounts in multiple currencies across over 10 countries in Africa.
Attending the festival, Mr Wen Jinwei, Head of Innovation and R&D Center of Internet Finance Department at ICBC Head Office remarked that as China’s largest commercial bank, ICBC has been at the forefront of advancing FinTech development. It has set up seven IT innovation labs to explore the key frontiers of FinTech, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and other technologies.
Invited to visit ICBC Singapore’s booth at the Festival were Mr Ong Chong Tee, Deputy Managing Director at Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Mr Leong Sing Chiong, Assistant Managing Director at MAS, Mr Ng Yao Loong, Assistant Managing Director at MAS, Mr Roy Teo, Executive Director at MAS, Ms Lee Huay Leng, Head of Chinese Media Group at Singapore Press Holdings and other guests.
Mr Roy Teo, Executive Director, Financial Centre Development of the Monetary Authority of Singapore said, “In the past few years, MAS has had many exchanges with banks about FinTech development in Singapore. I am very pleased to see ICBC Singapore branch actively participating in this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival and showcasing their new initiatives, such as ICBC e-Mall, Corporate E-banking and “Connecting Africa”. I hope these new initiatives will provide their corporate and retail clients in Singapore with greater convenience and efficiency. ”
In recent years, ICBC has accelerated the localization of its overseas branches, leveraging on the Group’s strengths to offer enhanced financial services solutions for both domestic and overseas clients. An example is ICBC’s proprietary e-Mall cross-border e-commerce platform, which has launched 29 overseas “pavilions” to date. It not only enables overseas businesses to expand their presence in the Chinese market, but also provides shoppers a convenient and seamless online shopping experience. The Singapore “Pavilion” was launched in November 2015 and currently features 11 well-known Singapore merchants.
Recently, ICBC Singapore has forged a strategic partnership with SPH to extend the B2C platform into the B2B space. Under the partnership, both parties will collaborate to build an integrated cross border e-commerce platform, and support businesses on the platform with marketing, information matching, trading, financing and other services, to further elevate cross-border trade between China and Singapore.
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