Standard Chartered has is planning its second digital-only bank in Asia in collaboration with Singapore-based labor union NTUC Enterprise, Bloomberg has reported.
Standard Chartered is expected to own a majority stake in the planned venture.
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The partners have recruited Australian startup Judo Bank’s co-founder Alex Twigg to spearhead the new venture, the report added.
Twigg, according to his LinkedIn profile, also helped to launch National Australia Bank’s (NAB’s) online lending arm UBank.
Standard Chartered and NTUC have code-named the new business as “Project Phoenix”.
Through this project, the London-based bank aims to compete with local rivals like DBS and non-banks like Grab Holdings.
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By GlobalDataThe discussions regarding the Standard Chartered and NTUC’s latest initiative are currently underway.
NTUC Enterprise is a division of the National Trades Union Congress. The trade union also operates over 100 supermarkets across the country.
The move follows Standard Chartered obtaining a digital-only bank license in Hong Kong and unveiling its virtual bank Mox in March 2020.
Standard Chartered also owns many digital banks in Africa.
Recently, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) forged a partnership with Airtel to drive financial inclusion in Africa.
Standard Chartered also partnered with Microsoft to become a cloud-first bank.
