Singapore Gulf Bank’s launch amid wealth flows

Chan said SGB’s location in Bahrain – a financial hub and gateway to the Mena region – has clear advantages in tapping the “fastest-growing regions” for cross-border e-commerce.

Its corporate banking services, which focus on digital asset management, including cryptocurrencies, recorded over US$4 billion in deposits and US$12 billion in transaction volume in 2025. This includes US$6 billion processed through its own settlement network, SGB Net.

SGB also holds a Golden Licence – introduced by Bahrain to expedite strategic investment projects – which allows it to operate as a full bank, offering streamlined regulatory support, business licensing and also priority allocation of land.

It is one of the only two foreign-owned banks in the kingdom operating under the banking licence, with the other being Citibank.

Asia-Gulf business remains promising

However, with war breaking out in the Gulf over the weekend, will prospects for SGB dim?

Chan believes the outlook for Asia-Pacific-Mena in 2026 remains “structurally strong”, especially since the gap SGB seeks to fill becomes more pronounced.

“This is in light of how global liquidity has tightened and cross-border settlement complexity (has) increased in recent times.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by wealth manager WRISE Private Middle East, which said Asian wealth inflows into the Gulf, particularly in the UAE and Dubai, will remain “robust”.

Dubai-based WRISE is part of Singapore-based WRISE Group. It provides the ultra-rich with integrated asset management, institutional-grade portfolio insights, and wealth planning.

Chan added that, if anything, capital and trade flows from Asia into the Gulf will continue to grow. “This growth, importantly, is increasingly occurring outside traditional Western financial corridors.”

In addition to its SGB venture, Whampoa has a portfolio of over 200 companies, including a fund started by cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Whampoa is co-founded by Amy Lee and Lee Han Shih.

Amy Lee is a former senior partner at local law firm Lee & Lee and niece of Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Han Shih is a scion of OCBC’s Lee family, executive director of the Lee Foundation and CEO of media production house Potato Productions.

Investments and businesses of the Lee families in China are managed by Justin Han, president of Whampoa Group and SGB co-founder and president.

Founding members of SGB also consist of leading business executives from Hong Kong, Qatar and Bahrain-based companies.

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Wu Jihan, the co-founder of Bitcoin mining company Bitmain and Singapore-based digital asset platform Matrixport, is among them.

Prior to establishing SGB, Whampoa Group explored digital banking opportunities in Singapore through a joint initiative with ByteDance in 2019. However, the exercise did not proceed, Chan said.

Bahrain has a history of regulating digital assets, with a single framework covering banks, capital markets and digital asset activity since 2019.

“Bahrain, for these reasons, provided a natural platform from which to serve global trade flows, with Asia-Gulf corridors offering an early use case,” said SGB’s Chan.