Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has strengthened its corporate banking and global markets business in the Asia-Pacific region with Singapore-based senior executive appointments –  David Koh as deputy head of corporate banking, Asia-Pacific, and Salim Zaman as head of sales and trading, global treasury, Asia-Pacific and East Asia.

Koh, who will report to Rajeev Kannan, managing executive officer and deputy head of Asia-Pacific, will be responsible for supporting Kannan in driving and executing a ‘One SMBC’ corporate coverage and solutions platform strategy for the region.

Koh joins from HSBC where he most recently led their global liquidity and cash management business in Singapore.  He brings close to 30 years of deep international experience in corporate and transaction banking having worked across seven geographies.  Prior to HSBC, Koh headed the transaction banking teams for Standard Chartered in Greater China and North Asia.  Earlier in his career, he managed wholesale banking and global transaction businesses at Westpac, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.

Zaman, who will report to Yasuyuki Takeda, senior general manager of treasury, Asia-Pacific, will lead the Asia-Pacific and East Asia sales and trading teams to offer treasury solutions for SMBC’s corporate and institutional clients and their ecosystems, and help to strengthen the global markets platform for foreign exchange (FX) and rates products across Asia-Pacific and East Asia.

He joins from Citigroup, where he has spent more than 20 years in FX and sales, working in the key Asian financial hubs of Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He was most recently managing director, head of FX investor sales, Asia-Pacific.  He is also passionate about digital transformation within financial services to enhance greater customer-centricity.  

“These appointments reflect SMBC’s Asia-centric strategic plan of accelerating the growth of our business footprint across key markets in Asia,” Kannan says. “Their leadership will deepen our expertise in the region and enable us to support our clients more consistently and across the full spectrum of propositions.”