Partior, a blockchain-based cross-border payments platform, has tapped a former managing director of SWIFT among a slate of new hires.

The global financial-market platform has named several new hires as it moves to expand its currency offerings, integrating eight this year, including the Japanese yen, the euro, the Australian dollar, the British pound, the Hong Kong dollar and China’s offshore yuan, Partior said in a press release Tuesday. The platform uses blockchain and smart contracts technology in an open platform for real-time, cross-border multi-currency payments, foreign exchange and other services; the platform started in 2021 with Singapore dollars and U.S. dollars.

SWIFT Veteran Named

Stella Lim, who was previously managing director for Asia Pacific for SWIFT – a messaging services used by banks for cross-border money transfers – was named chief operating officer for Partior to handling global partnerships, the release said.

In addition, Atul Bhuchar was named head of product, the release said. Bhuchar was previously group payments head in global transaction services at DBS where he worked on payments and transformational digital services, the release said.

Saxon Bartrop, who was previously group domain architecture head for wholesale banking’s payments and channels at UOB, was tapped for head of architecture for design and innovation to oversee delivering the technology architecture globally, the release said.

New Hyderabad Center

Angie Ong, who was head of product legal for Meta’s financial technologies, will join the company as the general counsel, the release said.

Abhinava Kumar Singh, who worked on NatWest Group’s payments engineering implementation as the director and engineering practice head for payments, is joining Partior as the technology chief at its new Hyderabad development center, the release said. The development center plans to use India’s talent pool to scale Partior’s technology delivery as the company prepares to launch the fourth generation of its product this year, the release said.

Partior, which was developed by Singapore central bank Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Ubin for exploring the use of blockchain and distributed-ledger technologies for clearing and settling payments and securities. The company was founded by J.P. Morgan, DBS and Singapore’s state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings in 2021.