John Laurens leans back in his chair and looks out across the Singapore skyline. “Everything in the world has changed so much over the last 100 years, but there are fundamental aspects of trade finance that remain stubbornly anchored to the past,” he says. “Sure, there are new platforms and technologies but, fundamentally, documentation that is still in use today would be familiar to people in the 19th century.” For some banks and their clients, such familiarity might seem a comfort. But it clearly makes DBS’s head of transaction banking uncomfortable. Innovation for DBS is a matter of survival. And in the world of transaction banking the bank is aiming to be one step ahead of its rivals, two steps ahead of its clients and, as far as possible, in front of the disruption that is coming to this most traditional form of banking.
February 06, 2017