[SINGAPORE] Around 6,000 kilometres from Singapore in Bahrain\u2019s capital, a group of Singapore investors and bankers have built a showcase of the Republic\u2019s banking expertise.<\/p>\n
The Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) was set up in 2024 in Manama city by the Whampoa Group, a multi-family office group linked to OCBC\u2019s founding Lee family. It is also supported by Mumtalakat, Bahrain\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, and a founding investor in the bank. <\/p>\n
Edmund Lee, son of the late prominent stockbroker Freddy Lee and nephew of Singapore\u2019s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, chairs the bank. The veteran banker worked for a decade at JPMorgan Chase, where his positions included vice-chairman of Asia-Pacific and senior country officer for Singapore.<\/p>\n
The digital bank\u2019s launch in the Gulf coincided with a booming wealth sector in the region. <\/p>\n
Savills Middle East\u2019s Spotlight on Wealth Trends <\/em>report in 2025 showed that Dubai and Abu Dhabi \u2013 both part of neighbouring United Arab Emirates (UAE) \u2013 came in top and fifth as global wealth destinations of choice.<\/p>\n On Whampoa\u2019s venture into Bahrain, SGB co-founder and CEO Shawn Chan said that while digital assets and stablecoins are increasingly embedded in real-world financial systems, traditional banking infrastructure has not caught up to support them at scale yet, particularly within a regulated framework.<\/p>\n Get the insights delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe gap (in global financial systems) is most visible in cross-border activity,\u201d he said in an interview with The Business Times<\/em>. \u201cSettlement remains slow, fragmented and constrained by today\u2019s banking systems, amid businesses operating across jurisdictions, asset classes and currencies globally.\u201d<\/p>\n The bank\u2019s answer was to offer 24\/7 banking, reliable US dollar access, and connectivity between fiat and digital assets to both corporate and retail clients. <\/p>\n A Dubai e-commerce report noted that online retail sales in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) have expanded 11 per cent annually since 2022, with the market expected to reach US$57 billion this year.<\/p>\n Chan said SGB\u2019s location in Bahrain \u2013 a financial hub and gateway to the Mena region \u2013 has clear advantages in tapping the \u201cfastest-growing regions\u201d for cross-border e-commerce.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n SGB also holds a Golden Licence \u2013 introduced by Bahrain to expedite strategic investment projects \u2013 which allows it to operate as a full bank, offering streamlined regulatory support, business licensing and also priority allocation of land.<\/p>\n It is one of the only two foreign-owned banks in the kingdom operating under the banking licence, with the other being Citibank.<\/p>\n However, with war breaking out in the Gulf over the weekend, will prospects for SGB dim?<\/p>\n Chan believes the outlook for Asia-Pacific-Mena in 2026 remains \u201cstructurally strong\u201d, especially since the gap SGB seeks to fill becomes more pronounced.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is in light of how global liquidity has tightened and cross-border settlement complexity (has) increased in recent times.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201crobust\u201d. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Chan added that, if anything, capital and trade flows from Asia into the Gulf will continue to grow. \u201cThis growth, importantly, is increasingly occurring outside traditional Western financial corridors.\u201d <\/p>\n In addition to its SGB venture, Whampoa has a portfolio of over 200 companies, including a fund started by cryptocurrency exchange Binance. <\/p>\n Whampoa is co-founded by Amy Lee and Lee Han Shih.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Lee family, executive director of the Lee Foundation and CEO of media production house Potato Productions.<\/p>\n Investments and businesses of the Lee families in China are managed by Justin Han, president of Whampoa Group and SGB co-founder and president.<\/p>\n Founding members of SGB also consist of leading business executives from Hong Kong, Qatar and Bahrain-based companies. <\/p>\n Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Wu Jihan, the co-founder of Bitcoin mining company Bitmain and Singapore-based digital asset platform Matrixport, is among them.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Bahrain has a history of regulating digital assets, with a single framework covering banks, capital markets and digital asset activity since 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cBahrain, for these reasons, provided a natural platform from which to serve global trade flows, with Asia-Gulf corridors offering an early use case,\u201d said SGB\u2019s Chan.<\/p>\nRole of SGB<\/h2>\n
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a new global order<\/h3>\nAsia-Gulf business remains promising<\/h2>\n