Financial Industry Veterans Set Up New Consultancy Firm

Asia Business Connections engaged by leading fintech vendors, including Gresham Computing, Empowered Systems and COR-FS to grow business in Asia Pacific

Asia Business Connections (ABC), a financial services consultancy based in Singapore, officially opens for business this month. It brings together over 40 years’ hands-on experience of the financial technology marketplace in founding partners Peter Hutton, previously Managing Director of Sungard Asia Pacific and Alan Talbot, previously Sales Manager of Wall Street Systems Asia Pacific.

ABC works with technology companies that are looking for rapid and cost-effective entry into the Asian financial services market by providing in-depth knowledge of the business drivers and access to a network of established regional industry contacts in banks, corporations, vendors, consulting companies and many other local and international organisations. ABC also acts in an advisory capacity to various financial institutions in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, offering leading expertise in specific fields such as treasury, governance, risk management, payments, wholesale banking, wealth management and compliance. In addition, the company offers executive level recruitment assistance to both industry vendors and financial organisations.

“This region presents some unique market challenges to new entrants,” explains founding-director Peter Hutton. “Combining our extensive industry & Asian market experience, we offer our clients and partners unparalleled market intelligence, access to a wide-spread contact database as well as independent and objective advice on succeeding in the various markets in Asia. Every market is different culturally and in terms of advancement - history shows there is always at least one market in Asia ready to the ride the next technology wave.”

“With financial services firms across APAC adopting similar technology development approaches as their Western counterparts, European and North American IT vendors recognise the massive opportunity for growth in this market,” says co-founding director Alan Talbot. “However, successfully entering these markets is another matter entirely and ABC is now here to help.”

ABC has already established relationships with some of the world’s leading software vendors such as COR-FS, Gresham Computing, Empowered Systems, RiskBusiness, Message Automation and ValidSoft. It is now working with these and several other vendors to facilitate the introduction of their niche and innovative software solutions to the APAC financial services industry.