In Good Company 'When you build a bank for the underserved, you build for almost everybody: New GXS CEO Lai Pei-Si'

She hopes to take GXS into wealth management and SME segments

- Ravi Velloor

Three decades ago when she was a management trainee with Overseas Union Bank, Ms Lai Pei-Si was often at the teller's station to count out the notes brought in by customers, or being withdrawn by them.

Customers seated in rows at the bank branch would wait for the bell to ring to signal that the next person could go to the window to be served.

You could say that banking, with its heavy emphasis on technology and preference for faceless transactions, has come a long way since those days, and so has Ms Lai, a naturalised Singaporean who moved across the Causeway after finishing secondary school in Malaysia to continue her tertiary education here.

On May 14, the schoolgirl whose first access to money was the change left on the family dining table by her school-teacher mother in Tampoi town, was named the Group CEO of GXS Group, the digital bank set up as a 60:40 joint venture between Grab Holdings and SingTel.