As Chinese businesses expand operations into ASEAN and Middle East, Hong Kong is emerging as a super connector between these regions and Mainland China. Lareina Wang, managing director and head of SME banking at DBS Bank (Hong Kong), said this requires closer collaboration among Asia’s financial institutions, regulators and fintech providers. “As an important super connector, we in Hong Kong have access to the community that understands customer demands from both sides, and this understanding will supercharge our ability to help SME customers thrive in Hong Kong and scale globally,” Wang said. Chinese enterprises are increasingly expanding operations into ASEAN and the Middle East, rather than into traditional Western markets. As a result, many now view Hong Kong as their first or next base. DBS benefits from this movement due to its strong presence in Southeast Asia. “A lot of our clients of Chinese descent are looking for suppliers, capital and customers in ASEAN. So, when we talk about Hong Kong and the GBA, it extends beyond the GBA,” said Wang. Bridging the SME financing gap Traditional SME banking products, i.e. current accounts, payments and working capital loans, are no longer sufficient for SMEs seeking to expand regionally. Wang said SMEs now seek smarter, integrated financial and digital services that help them manage liquidity, digitise operations and scale efficiently. “We have collaborated with partners to offer digital connection and subscription-based services,” she explained, describing DBS’s evolving suite of SME solutions. These include DBS Max, a merchant collection platform, and GlobeSend, a cross-border payment service that offers faster, cheaper settlements in selected currencies. “It’s not super innovative, but it genuinely helps SMEs to get paid and that’s the most important thing for them,” Wang said. “Settlement time is now as fast as one day.” She added that DBS has streamlined onboarding for small businesses, allowing mainland Chinese entrepreneurs to open Hong Kong accounts digitally within five days. Balancing AI innovation and governance AI has become a major theme across banking, but Wang is prudent and cautious about its deployment. She believes a “human-in-the-loop” approach ensures automation and enhances service without compromising accountability. She has also called for a clear regulatory roadmap on AI governance. “We need all financial regulators to align on AI strategy and implementation,” she urged. “The industry should work together, from regulators, academia to fintechs, to form an AI sandbox and shared testing protocols.” Within DBS, she highlighted the evolution of the bank’s JoyBot chatbot, now being enhanced with generative AI to enable “conversational banking,” a step toward an AI-assisted relationship manager (RM) model. “Our vision is that every customer has a RM and every RM is assisted by an AI assistant,” she said. Towards an AI bank with a heart Even as DBS advances its digital transformation, Wang emphasised the importance of retaining a human touch. “We’re Asia’s safest bank and we’re cautious for a reason,” she said. “Being an AI bank with a heart means using technology to free up people for higher-value work, to provide advice, not just transactions.” Today, over 95% of DBS Hong Kong’s transactions are digital, but Wang believes the next frontier lies in service experience. “Simple things like updating company details or changing addresses still involve manual steps,” she said. “We are enabling customers to do these digitally, and we are educating those who are not ready yet. Once freed from administrative work, our RMs can focus on advisory, helping clients see opportunities they do not yet know exist.” Looking ahead, from digital onboarding to AI-assisted service, Wang sees Hong Kong’s fintech ecosystem maturing into one that balances innovation with integrity. As she said at the Hong Kong FinTech Week: “Be fearless, act now, and build together.”
