SCB ex-president Yol joins Central Group

SCB yesterday reported to the Stock Exchange of Thailand that Yol Phokasub had resigned as a director, member of the executive committee and member of the corporate social responsibility committee at the bank.
His resignation was effective from yesterday. Yol joined SCB in 2007, and he was named president of the bank on April 3 last year before stepping down from the position in May this year.
SCB informed the SET yesterday that his resignation from all positions at the bank was due to his other commitments.
Separately, SCB said yesterday that its financial-technology subsidiary Digital Ventures had announced its direct venture-capital investment in Ripple, a San Francisco-based provider of financial-settlement solutions. This makes SCB the first Thai commercial bank to invest in a feasibility study and testing of enterprise-grade blockchain technology to enable fast, cost-saving, private and secure international payment transactions.
“Blockchain is an exciting emerging financial technology that is slated to transform the world of financial services and online transactions – a disruptive technology in the digital age,” said Thana Thienachariya, chairman of the executive committee at Digital Ventures.
“Through an investment in and pilot programme with Ripple, SCB can explore the opportunity in utilising blockchain to develop new products and services to better serve customers. This makes SCB the first bank in Thailand to pilot international money-transfer services using Ripple’s blockchain solutions, with due diligence conducted by Digital Ventures, whose mission is to seek new investment and development of innovative fintech to elevate SCB’s customer-service quality.”
Ripple’s global network includes several top global banks such as Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Canada, Westpac, National Australia Bank, Mizuho Financial Group, BMO Financial Group and Shanghai Huarui Bank, which have implemented blockchain technology for their cross-border transactions.
“When the blockchain network is commercially viable and gets approval from the Thai financial regulatory authority in the future, the knowledge base gained from this investment can be integrated into our system, and will bring a significant improvement in the quality of SCB’s international money-transfer services through a fast, convenient, cost-saving and secure world-class online transaction platform,” Thana said.
SCB participated in Ripple’s Series B fundraising round, in which the blockchain company raised US$55 million last month. Notable investors in Ripple to date include Accenture, Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners, Santander InnoVentures and Seagate.
“This partnership marks a major step forward for SCB, driven by Digital Ventures, to build the most comprehensive fintech ecosystem in Thailand,” Thana said.
“As blockchain technology is still new and not widespread in Thailand, we also see an opportunity to work closely with Ripple to educate Thai people and businesses on this technology and help raise awareness on its importance and potential to be adopted in a wide variety of service transactions, both in financial and non-financial service industries.”