Team size: 20

What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?

In 2023, by leveraging our extensive product set and the ability to provide unique cross-border access, HSBC was able to:

a) Support growing demand for Islamic funds by helping a leading Malaysian asset manager to implement Shariah-compliant hedging solutions via a unique Shariah-compliant FX Overlay service that automated the hedging of currency risk within the Islamic fund.

b) Islamic FX Overlay enables clients to scale and launch different hedged-share classes within a fund, and clients are also able to leverage HSBC’s digital monitoring and management tools to efficiently track hedges and simplify operational processes. This new offering reinforces HSBC’s ability to innovate with evolving client needs, highlighting our strength in both digital and eFX proposition, and the ability to support clients in managing market and operational risk.

c) Deliver on HSBC’s strategy to offer streamlined and flexible FX proposition across multiple channels, achieving a 95% electronic FX booking ratio across both retail and corporate segments. In 2023, HSBCNet GetRate, which provides automatic preferential FX for Telegraphic and In-House transfers was further enhanced to enable 24/7 FX booking for companies with European/American headquarters who previously couldn’t access FX rates when booking outside of MYR trading hours.

d) For retail clients, HSBC continued to streamline international payments and FX conversions to deliver better customer experience and efficiency through digital enablement. This includes the ability to convert at live FX rates, 24/7 online International Payments (Telegraphic and Global transfers) and personalised FX pricing available at HSBC Online Banking and Mobile Banking.

e) For SME clients, HSBC rolled out Global Wallet proposition which allows SMEs to view, hold and manage multiple currencies all in one place, whereby users pay and receive like a local without the hassle of opening multiple accounts and logins. Global Money also comes with the benefit of enhanced capabilities and security of HSBCnet, including easy transfers between accounts, entitlements, and two-factor authentication.

g) Supply Chain Financing-i (SCF-i) was introduced to commercial banking clients in 2023. It possesses digital capabilities that deliver efficiencies in transactions and payments terms throughout our customer’s supply chain – which leads to competitively priced working capital for our customers’ suppliers and concurrently optimises our customers’ Days Payable Outstanding without the need to rely heavily on less cost-effective unstructured lending programmes. Customers may integrate their supply chain and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions with SCF-I to automate an end-to-end flow of their business information and financial transactions efficiently towards adopting a full Shariah-compliant supply chain finance. SCF-i is designed with sustainability in mind enabling customers to work towards achieving their Sustainable goals.

What is a cause, business-related or otherwise, that you are passionate about, and why?

Building a Malaysia legal team who can provide legal support to our group banking entities beyond Malaysia given (i) Malaysia legal system is common law based and our lawyers are largely English and Malaysia law trained (ii) Malaysia is a cost effective jurisdiction and (iii) Malaysian lawyers are generally multilingual with ability to converse and write in English, Mandarin/Cantonese and Bahasa Malaysia. I am passionate about bringing international legal expertise and standards to our local lawyers given general lack of exposure in the general MY legal community to foreign markets and more sophisticated FI product and service offerings. This is well into progress now with 5 of our 20 lawyers serving HSBC Asia Pacific based out of Kuala Lumpur.