Thorsten Neumann | FinTech Magazine
SC Ventures is Standard Chartered Bank’s response to the rapid acceleration of the fintech area, with Thorsten Neumann overseeing technology activities. Currently, the company’s venture builder has a total portfolio of over 30 ventures at various stages that create options and expand ecosystems that complement the bank.
In addition to its $ 100 million internal intrapreneurship and growth fund, SC Ventures focuses on six key thematic domains, including digital banking and lifestyle, online economics and payments, SMEs and world trade, digital assets, service capabilities, sustainability and inclusion.
“We are thinking of new value propositions. For example, by leveraging our strengths, we can brainstorm on the agricultural sector by meeting the needs of farmers in terms of seed financing, supply chain, product launch and logistics solutions to expand the ecosystem in the thematic area of sustainability, and then build out a robust and scalable Cloud-native platform, ”explains Neumann.
“We believe we can have a much greater impact on delivering disruptive business models in emerging markets due to the internal domain expertise, the bank’s large footprint and deep local market knowledge through our link with the bank.”
Neumann joined SC Ventures a few months before the start of the pandemic to lead the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He witnessed one of the toughest periods for the business. Based in Singapore, he has previously founded and co-founded start-ups in the financial and payment sectors, and aims to increase the competitive advantage of ventures in a broader market.
Drawing on entrepreneurship through his father’s influence, Neumann ventured into the development of technology startups, including founding an Internet services business in his late teens, serving around 5,000 SMEs in South Africa. He later joined a stock trading platform in South Africa, and so it expanded to 23 markets covering 19 different currencies. Neumann is proud to say that these companies provided great lessons in scaling and marketing across geographic areas. He now uses these lessons for the efforts in their efforts to succeed with their business models.
Becomes more digital
During the COVID pandemic, SC Ventures was responsible for many transformation work that enabled the bank to continuously run its operations from a social distance. One of these processes was the roll-out of electronic signatures, which is the key for the bank and customers in terms of security and authorization.
Neumann also talks about the plans that are currently underway at SC Ventures, with a view to bringing digital banking into its portfolio without negatively affecting the traditional model. When discussing the two digital banks – one of which is Mox Bank based in Hong Kong, and the new Trust Bank in Singapore – he explains that the “digibank” is the result of differentiating itself in a underserved segment and tailoring to the needs of the mass trading sector. . .
“We are looking at our construction partners to help us not only access the best talent, but also take their input into solutions for these new technology-enabled business models,” he concludes.
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