banking

Banks and payment giants at the Singapore FinTech Festival warned about deepfakes, cyberattacks, and AI-driven fraud even as they push aggressively into agentic AI and design their firms around AI-native operating models. With risks rising, leaders said 2026 will force a balance between ambition and safeguards.

After a deluge of defaults, a new state-owned bank called United Islamic Bank is set to emerge out of the five banks, with the plan to privatise them over time.

Over the last few months, the French bank has created several new roles and made key hires to bolster its presence in the region, including in mainland China.

The new branch in the IFSC will be led by Mihir Baxi, and will support renewable energy and infrastructure in India, including roads, transmission, data centres, technology and telecommunications.

The Singaporean Citi veteran has over three decades of experience at the US bank and replaces Tibor Pandi.

Alvaro Huete has been with the French bank for 28 years and is relocating from Paris to Singapore.

Wong is expected to join the US bank in a senior relationship manager role from UBS in September.

Natixis' Tokyo branch will now be able to offer a wider range of services, in addition to money lending.

Zhang Wenjie will return to the bank as Citi’s country officer and banking head for China in July.