Christine (Jang) Tan
Head of FIG Sales APAC at J.P. Morgan
Nearly everybody on the planet is aware of J.P. Morgan as an investment bank, but Jang explains that it’s much more diversified than that. “The Payments business is actually quite a sizeable business in APAC,” she explains
“We operate with in-country presence in 16 markets,” Jang says. “We support 18 markets from a client segment standpoint within Asia. And then of course they move their flows on a global basis.” In APAC alone, the Payments business operates hubs in Manila and Mumbai, which facilitate some of the treasury services and trade processing that J.P. Morgan carries out on behalf of its clients.
Looking up to some bright-shining stars
When you’re working at such an astronomic level, it takes some bright-shining stars to inspire you. Within J.P. Morgan, Jang says she looks up to Takis Georgakopoulos, the Global Head of J.P. Morgan’s Payments division. “He was previously my boss when he ran the multinational business, and brings a unique strategic background to his current role. His vision of bringing together four discrete businesses under a single Payments umbrella is what differentiates us today, enabling the bank to provide end-to-end pay-in, pay-out, cash management and trade finance capabilities to our clients. Today, we process almost US$10tn in payments daily in more than 120 currencies and over 160 countries across the world, and we’re only getting started on this journey.”
A Singaporean native, Jang takes inspiration from the country’s late founding father and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, as well. “Mr. Lee put Singapore on the map, and the financial services industry thrived under his leadership,” Jang says. “It's been growing as a key financial hub globally so I’m really inspired by his journey running the country.”
Blockchain a key driver behind payments
She is a firm believer in the possibilities brought about by blockchain, and expects the decentralised technology to form a key pillar of J.P. Morgan’s strategy as the company innovates the future of payments: “We are working globally on opportunities to leverage the technology and apply them to various requirements and solutioning – whether it's on the markets front, tokenisation, real-time movement of money and cross-border payments.”
As she looks ahead to a promising future, Jang neatly summarises the pin-sharp focus of J.P. Morgan’s Asian payments team: “We believe that seamless and secure payment solutions can help our clients and their business to grow, diversify, and thrive by enabling rails for companies, financial institutions, and consumers to pay anyone by any method or channel from anywhere, anytime.”
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