Vivek Ramachandra, global head of growth and innovation at HSBC’s commercial bank in Hong Kong, has been appointed CEO of Jasmine22 – the bank’s trade-finance technology platform that remains under wraps.
He has been at HSBC since 2015, initially joining as head of product and propositions, for global trade and receivables finance.
Other roles include CEO of VT Advisory, a boutique advisory focused on banking; and four years at Barclays, where he ran corporate banking ex-U.K.
Singapore
Bert-Jan van Essen has left Privé Technologies to join rival digital-wealth fintech Additiv. Van Essen was formerly chief technology officer at Privé, as well as founder of Dragon Wealth and former Asia-Pacific chief information officer at Credit Suisse’s private bank. He takes on the title of managing director at Additiv, effective April 1, with responsibility for sales, product and delivery managers in Singapore and Vietnam. These tasks were previously under Thomas Achhorner, Asia-Pacific managing director, who is focusing on developing new markets.
Duncan Klein has joined Incomlend as head of funding. He is a former banker at J.P. Morgan specializing in fixed income and transition management. After 12 years at the bank, he ran Asia sales for bond-tech vendor MarketAxess, and for two years ran outbound product management at BondIT, a robo advisor for fixed income products for financial institutions. Incomlend is a peer-to-peer marketplace for invoices.
Aditya Kumar has been named head of technology and process at The Open Vault, the fintech-engagement arm of OCBC Bank. He has served tech roles supporting cash management and treasury banking at Citi and J.P. Morgan, including leading the latter firm’s Asia initiative in robotics process automation and machine learning.
Xen Technologies, which is tokenizing alternative assets for accredited investors, has announced two additions to its team. Yong-Hak Huh has joined its board of advisors. Huh was previously chief investment officer at Hong Kong Monetary Authority, responsible for private markets and direct investments – the first person to hold that role. He will advise Xen on its strategic and regulatory affairs. William Ting has also joined Xen as chief commercial officer. Ting continues his role as co-founder of W&E Networks, a technology consultancy in Wyoming, USA.
India
Praveena Rai has joined the National Payments Corporation of India as chief operating officer. Based in Mumbai, she will be responsible for marketing, business development, product management, and operations strategy. She joins from Kotak Mahindra Bank, where for the past year she has run its cash management business. Prior to that she spent nine years at HSBC, where she had served as head of sales providing solutions to global banking corporations in Asia, and commercial banking clients in India.
Israel
Elad Goz has been appointed country manager of GrowthX, a business helping startups, corporations and countries commercialize innovation. He was previously country head for Henderson (China) Investments, where he helped the firm invest in technology companies.
Bahrain
Ketan Samani has relocated to Bahrain from Singapore to serve as chief operating officer at The Family Office Company, an investment firm for Gulf-based clients. Samani has a strong digital background, as chief digital officer at UBS Wealth Management, as well as digital roles at DBS and Standard Chartered.
Belgium
Chris De Noose has joined FinDatEx’s executive committee. He continues to serve as managing director of the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute. FinDatEx is a new consortium of European financial institutions to develop standards for sharing data.
