Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_62eb59f964feb" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>SCB 10X, the investment arm of one of Thailand&#8217;s largest banks, has appointed a new CEO to lead its investments in Web3, DeFi and blockchain tech</li>
 <li>SCB 10X has so far received &#8220;very good support&#8221; from the bank, the CEO told Blockworks in an interview</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The venture arm of one of Thailand&#8217;s largest banks by total assets has appointed a new CEO to lead its Web3, DeFi and blockchain investments, despite a gloomy market outlook and declining revenues.



SCB 10X, an arm of Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and holding company of SCB Group, said Thursday it has tapped its chief venture and investment officer, Mukaya (Tai) Panich to succeed former CEO Arak Sutivong. Panich will retain her role as CIO on top of her new position, SCB 10X said.



SCB10X also said it has promoted its head of strategic planning, Pailin Vichakul, to chief operating officer.



The appointments are a &#8220;testament&#8221; to the way in which the investment arm has been conducting itself in the crypto industry, which has so far received &#8220;very good support&#8221; from the bank, Panich told Blockworks in an interview. 



As of March 31, 2022 the Bank had Baht 3.3 trillion ($91.2 billion) in total assets, Bhat 2.5 trillion ($69.1 billion) in deposits and Baht 2.3 trillion ($63.5 billion) in loans on its books.



Investments in crypto have slowed following a market rout in April resulting from the fall out of Terra&#8217;s ecosystem and a liquidity crisis that caught many large lenders off-guard.&nbsp;



&#8220;Even during the crypto winter, we continue to have conviction around this area that seems to be a game changer,&#8221; Panich said in relation to the arm&#8217;s investments in crypto&#8217;s growth areas. 



When asked about considerable headwinds facing the industry as a whole, Panich likened the uptake in Web3, DeFi and blockchain technologies to that of the internet in the early 2000s.



&#8220;It takes a while for all these types of investments and technologies to come to fruition,&#8221; Panich said. &#8220;We are not a short-term investor, we are a long-term investor. It will take some time.&#8221;



Panich, whose background includes more than 20 years of technology investing across Silicon Valley, New York and Singapore, will lead SCB 10X’s initiatives to back and build ecosystems in what it sees as disruptive technologies across Southeast Asia. 



Under her stewardship, SCB 10X will continue to grow its team to achieve its &#8220;moonshot mission,&#8221; the venture arm said.



That mission refers to long-term value creation through exponential technologies, innovations, and investment via venture capital and venture building, according to its <a href="https://www.scb10x.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website</a>.



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Crypto

Venture Arm of SCB Bank Taps New CEO to Lead Crypto Investments

<div id="highlights-block_622831c017644" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The investment arm of Thailand&#8217;s fourth largest bank has set up a virtual headquarters in The Sandbox</li>
 <li>It has become the second major financial institution to do so following JP Morgan&#8217;s foray into the virtual medium last month</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The investment arm of Thailand&#8217;s fourth-largest bank by total assets has set up shop within the metaverse built by Animoca Brands&#8217; subsidiary The Sandbox. SCB 10X of the Siam Commercial Bank has become the second major financial institution to establish itself within the virtual world, following JP Morgan&#8217;s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/jpmorgan-enters-the-metaverse-with-virtual-decentraland-lounge/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lounge opening</a> on Decentraland&#8217;s platform last month.



As part of the launch, SCB said it will be hosting its “Open House In The Metaverse” on March 11 to showcase its virtual headquarters where it will host workshops and discussions, according to a press release on Wednesday.



&#8220;Financial technologies of the future, such as blockchain, digital asset, DeFi and the metaverse are core areas of interest for us to explore,&#8221; SCB 10X&#8217;s chief investment officer Mukaya Panich said.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;We believe that the metaverse will play an important role, enabling infinite creations in a digital world [while] shaping new frontiers for the economy of the future.&#8221;</blockquote>



Following the establishment of its foothold in the metaverse, SCB also said its headquarters will invite users to engage with a world &#8220;designed to reflect the past, present and future&#8221; of Thai culture.



Visitors will be able to navigate through three separately crafted environments to attend virtual events, join the investment arm&#8217;s product demonstrations, share a working space and interact with attendees from around the world, it said.



SCB is hoping its launch will inspire collaboration, development and the exchange of ideas amongst builders and community creators in a bid to accelerate innovation within the digital medium.



The collaboration between The Sandbox and SCB follows on from the investment arm&#8217;s participation in The Sandbox&#8217;s $93 million Series B funding round in November last year. SCB is now pursuing its metaverse ambitions as part of the deal, The Sandbox&#8217;s co-founder Sebastien Borget said.



“Their team is leading innovation in the digital assets space and we’re glad to see them exploring how a bank can grow a community in the open metaverse.”



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Mukaya Panich

Thailand’s SCB Launches Virtual Headquarters in The Sandbox Metaverse

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_60edf527d78d1" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Thailand’s SCB sees a future where DeFi protocols have disintermediated banks</li>
 <li>Its venture fund SCB 10x is investing in protocols that operate services that provide parallel platforms to traditional banks</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Asia’s large incumbent banks have historically had a mixed record on digital assets and DeFi. <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hong-kongs-digital-assets-double-standard/">Hong Kong’s HSBC</a> seems terrified of it and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/can-dbs-sto-revive-a-stagnant-offering-class/">DBS is making small regulated steps</a>, but Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)&#8217;s venture fund, SCB 10x, has taken a full embrace of the future of finance, doubling down on investments in the sector.&nbsp;



All this is to prepare for an era where banks and other financial institutions are possibly “completely disintermediated,” said SCB 10x&#8217;s Chief Venture and Innovation Officer Mukaya Tai.&nbsp;



“The best way to do that is to invest in DeFi very actively to learn and prepare the bank, find DeFi partners, integrate DeFi into traditional finance, become a player in this area, and potentially be the disruptor in this area,” Tai told Blockworks in an interview. “My view is that in the future, there will be an integration of traditional finance with DeFi.”



SCB 10x, SCB&#8217;s venture arm, invests in projects that parallel traditional finance, such as lending protocol Alpha and fixed income protocol Anchor. The fixed income market, Tai said, has a global value of $128 trillion creating an incredibly lucrative sector for innovation. Additionally, SCB 10x is working with Band Protocol, which develops oracles to validate real-world data such as prices for use in smart contracts, as a node validator, meaning it&#8217;s an active participant in the network.



“I am particularly proud of this because this deal marks the first time in Asia that a leading traditional bank such as ours has engaged in real involvement in the public DeFi network. Being a node validator means having certain technical skills and capabilities which we possess in-house,” Tai said. “This kind of active, hands-on engagement with the DeFi protocols and their network I believe is unique to SCB/SCB 10x among others in traditional finance, and this is something we look forward to doing with our future DeFi investments as well.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">There’s an appetite for DeFi, outside of Hong Kong and Singapore</h3>



Tai points to a healthy appetite for DeFi in Thailand, as demonstrated by the volume of visits to MetaMask, a popular browser-based software wallet used with Ethereum and other blockchains.&nbsp;



The number of visits to MetaMask from Thailand hit the 4.7 million mark in April 2021, according to publicly available data, with Thailand accounting for 3% of all traffic. That might not seem like much, but that puts Thailand in the top four countries behind the US, China, and Turkey.&nbsp;



Tai notes that Thai users were #1 in trading traffic on Pancake Swap, a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/are-nimble-dexs-a-threat-to-coinbase/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DEX</a> based on the Binance Service Chain, and synthetic stock trading platform Mirror.&nbsp;



While Tai would not comment on SCB 10x’s conversations with regulators, the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission has seemingly been open to forms of crypto trading, provided it stays within certain boundaries. <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/thailand-bans-nfts-meme-tokens-from-regulated-exchanges/">In early June</a>, the regulator banned Thai-registered exchanges from listing meme tokens like DOGE that have “no clear objectives or substance, and whose prices are dictated by social media trends” as well as NFTs (which <a href="https://protos.com/nft-market-bubble-popped-crypto-collectibles-are-over/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">market data suggests</a> fall in the same category).&nbsp;



Bangkok-based law firm Pugnatorius called the legal framework surrounding NFTs “unresolved” and pointed out that in the eyes of the law, NFT’s aren’t digital certificates of ownership but rather a “certificate of sponsorship&#8221;. This view of NFTs, which would see them popped up without much underlying substance, could be the reason why the Thai SEC has given them a red light.&nbsp;



Earlier, Pugnatorius had said Thailand was suffering from a ‘<a href="https://forkast.news/thailands-crypto-cold-season-makes-for-a-land-of-frowns/">crypto cold season</a>’ as the nation’s much-publicized regulated Security Token Offering platforms (a regulated way to raise capital via blockchain-enabled equity sales) hadn’t drawn much interest from investors.



“Potential and creativity are channeled into DeFi ventures,” Pugnatorius said at the time.&nbsp;



And what’s likely driving this appetite? Well, unlike blockchain technology ventures — which look to incorporate blockchain into different facets of the economy — that tried to raise money via STOs to not much avail, DeFi has captured the imagination and interest of the market with their quick double-digit returns.&nbsp;



Though Thailand isn’t a financial hub like Singapore and Hong Kong it does have one thing in common confirms Tai: a lack of taxes on DeFi.&nbsp;

SCB10x

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