• The banking as a service model opens opportunities for new entrants to provide financial services without having to build it from scratch
• Standard Chartered’s first partner for nexus is a major e-commerce platform in Indonesia
• This is the first venture by the bank’s innovation unit SC Ventures that runs innovation labs, fintech investment fund and experiments with new business models

New entrants such as payments, e-commerce, ride hailing and social media companies increasingly seek to expand their offerings in financial services but face several challenges. The banking as a service (BaaS) model empowers such players and integrates banking seamlessly through a white-labelled solution. This business model is what Standard Chartered uses in its recently launched venture called nexus, which brings transformational partnerships between consumer platforms and digital banking.

“Applying for licences, committing capital, building an end-to-end technology solution and bearing the operational costs of running a financial service can be heavy and extremely painful to set up. We offer the ability to move into that space by plugging into our stack, leveraging our balance sheet and liability without having to build it from scratch. This will be far quicker and more efficient to scale,” said Kelvin Tan, venture lead at nexus.

Tan explained that nexus enables ecosystem players to offer financial services, allowing them to design and support their own value proposition while relying on the bank’s balance sheet and licence.

Incubated at its innovation unit

nexus was incubated under the umbrella of SC Ventures, the unit that drives the bank’s innovations and fintech investments.

Sharing the details, SC Ventures head Alex Manson explained, “Firstly, we have innovation labs called eXellerator, which is in the bank, for the bank and by the bank. Here, we run the fintech p...

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