September Teller 1

Spotlight
From page 3
the course continues to garner interest.
Many students who took this course
have graduated, and are employed in
the industry. There is however still a lot
more that we can do, and is why I am
still involved with the IBF to promote
transaction banking to aspiring bankers.
This remains one of my passions and how
I want to give back to the industry.
Melvyn and his family at the
2,000-year-old Aqueduct of Segovia in
Spain in December 2017
From page 3
How did you get involved in transaction
banking?
My very first job was an internship at OCBC.
I had just finished National Service, waiting
for my MBA programme to start. My office
was at OCBC Centre South and my job was
to programme reports for the credit card
department. It was a great opportunity to
interact with bankers and understand banking,
and influenced my decision to go into banking
instead of pure IT.
After my MBA, I joined a bank as a relationship
manager for large Asian corporates. In the mid
1990s, I moved to cash management sales in
transaction banking, just when the industry
was up and coming.
You created the world’s first full-credit course
on transaction banking for undergraduates at
the National University of Singapore. How did
that come about?
4 TELLER September 2018
I was involved in campus recruitment
for about 10 years at my previous job.
One thing that I realised was that many
students in university or business school
would learn about corporate finance,
investment banking, foreign exchange
and asset liability management, but
they would not know anything about
transaction banking.
I found this surprising because transaction
banking is an exciting area of banking
and it would be such a waste if our
young talent were not exposed to this,
or even know it exists. Part of the reason
why transaction banking is relatively
unknown compared to private banking
or investment banking is because it is a
fairly new business – it has been around
for maybe 20 to 25 years. I wanted to
promote transaction banking as a career
of choice for young people who join the
industry.
It has been about five years now and
Can you explain what transaction
banking is in simple terms?
Transaction banking is simply about
helping customers move money, assets
or securities within the country or across
borders. If you look at it from a corporate
perspective, it starts with a bank account.
This account will be used to collect money
from clients and pay suppliers each
day. This is the cash conversion cycle.
Throughout this cycle, the company may
find it has surplus funds to invest in, or
it may be in deficit and it has to draw on
funds. (See graphic on next page).
The business of transaction banking is
selling solutions around how a company
collects, makes payments and manages
its liquidity. The advent of the personal
computer and the internet made it
possible for our customers to conduct
banking electronically. With advances in
mobile, APIs (Application Programming
Interfaces), big data and block chain,
transaction banking continues to morph
as we deploy our services through
these technologies. In fact, I always call
transaction banking “the original fintech”.
You were a key member of FAST (Fast
and Secured Transfers, which allows
customers of 20 participating banks
in Singapore to transfer funds almost
instantly. FAST is the foundation
for PayNow, which the industry has
launched last year. Tell me about your
own cashless experience.
For the past three years, I’ve been trying
to go around without my wallet to test
if I can make payments using my phone.
I found that many places still require
cards and even cash. This is different from
China, where I could not pay for anything
without Alipay or WeChat. Most places
would not even take cash!
With the launch of SGQR (a common QR
code for Singapore) together with PayNow
for Corporates, we are enabling a more
ubiquitous electronic payment mode that
is easy to use. I am hopeful that Singapore
would truly become cashless one day.
Tell us about your other passions.
I like to write reviews on Tripadvisor
to share my experiences with other
travellers. I am an avid user of TripAdvisor
and this is a way I can give back to others. I
am among the top 3 per cent of reviewers