Standard Chartered is creating a new business unit to invest directly in financial technology and promote innovation.
The bank, which places a strong emphasis on emerging markets and Asia, established a new business unit, SC Ventures, which will invest in fintech and other start-up companies, promote testing and implement digital innovation across the banking group.
SC Ventures will be led by Alex Manson, most recently head of transaction banking. He will report to Michael Gorriz, group chief information officer, effective from March and will be based in Singapore, the U.K.-based bank said in a press release.
Standard Chartered has previously invested in Ripple, the distributed ledger company to co-develop commercially viable applications for global trade and payments and Paxata, an enterprise information management company. In 2015, Standard Chartered announced it was investing about $3 billion over three years in technology and systems.
