A Malaysian bank is stockpiling Chinese traders in Singapore
When you think of Singapore’s biggest banks, you might think of hometown hero DBS, or maybe regional specialist Standard Chartered. What you should be thinking of, however, is a Malaysian universal bank called Maybank.
Maybank is growing. At least a dozen senior people have joined in the past year. Many have come from China Galaxy Securities (CGS), a Chinese state-owned investment banking boutique.
They include Maybank's head of electronic trading, Kim Song Low. Song joined Maybank in July from CGS, where he spent seven and a half years, most recently as head of its group institutional platforms. He was at OCBC before that.
Stanley Chow also joined Maybank in July, as a VP in electronic trading. Chow’s career appears intertwined deeply with Song’s – after meeting at OCBC, Chow left the firm a month after Song did back in 2018, and they both spent seven and a half years at CGS before leaving for Maybank. Chow was also head of Singaporean institutional platforms at CGS, meaning he would have reported directly to Song.
Maybank’s new additions aren’t exclusively from CGS, however. The firm also added Claudia Koh from Citi to lead its structured products and FX team. Koh was formerly head of equities and structured products for Citibank international personal bank (IPB), and head of structured products for Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée. Koh joined Maybank in July.
Darren O’Malley joined in July, too, as Asian head of prime. O’Malley over 26 years at Credit Suisse across London and Hong Kong, and was last the firm’s head of prime client services back in September 2023.
Maybank isn’t exactly a traditional investment banking player. The firm doesn’t appear in any of market intelligence provider LSEG’s (formerly Refinitiv) rankings for APAC investment banking revenue for 2024. According to its website, however, it is committed to “humanising financial services”. Its homepage puts that slogan next to a picture of a tiger – so make of that what you will.
Maybank did not respond to a request for comment.
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