Mah Bow Tan invests in Singapore fintech firm, is named its adviser

Mr Mah Bow Tan was the national development minister from 1999 to 2011.
Mr Mah Bow Tan was the national development minister from 1999 to 2011.

Former Cabinet minister Mah Bow Tan has joined a group of seasoned market practitioners to invest in a fintech firm.

Mr Mah, who was national development minister from 1999 to 2011, has been appointed as adviser and director of the Singapore-headquartered fintech firm HydraX.

He is also non-executive chairman of GYP Properties and chairman of GlobalCities Sustainable Investment.

HydraX, an awards finalist at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2018, has a digital trading platform offering instant price discovery and asset transfers across exchanges. It also provides an electronic trading service to execute over-the-counter or off-exchange transactions.

Its management team has a total of 60 years of experience in finance, financial regulation, law and technology.

The team is headed by founder and chief executive Daryl Low, a portfolio manager at Swiss-Asia Financial Services with previous experience in Singapore Exchange's legal and regulatory policy departments.

They are supported by advisers who have invested in the firm in a personal capacity, including Mr Mohamed Nasser Ismail, senior vice-president at the Singapore Exchange, and Keppel Capital chief financial officer Paul Tham.

HydraX chief marketing officer Trina Ga said: "Professional trading platforms for traditional asset classes such as equities and forex have been available for decades.

"However, there is a dearth of purpose-built trading platforms for digital and alternative asset classes which are flexible enough to handle a dissipated trading universe, while robust enough to power the demands of modern financial marketplaces.

"HydraX solves this by providing a complete suite of professional features across traditional and cryptographic asset classes, including charting, trade execution, portfolio monitoring, asset management and automated trading."

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 16, 2018, with the headline Mah Bow Tan invests in Singapore fintech firm, is named its adviser. Subscribe