It was not just the pride of La Sarita – his 35-horse polo team – clinching the trophy that brought such satisfaction to the 56-year-old businessman, but also the methodical way the players built up to the match-winning moment.

“That is why polo is such an interesting sport. To win, everything has to come together. You will need the preparation, the hard work, the right teammates and a cool head. Exactly like doing business,” Jumabhoy told The Straits Times after the match in January at the Thai Polo Club in Pattaya.

Jumabhoy, who won a polo silver medal for Singapore at the Southeast Asian Games in 2007, knows what it takes to be a winner, both in sports and in dealmaking.

And while his name may evoke memories of the once-powerful Jumabhoy clan behind Scotts Holdings – one of Singapore’s early property giants with assets that included a shopping centre and serviced residence – he has been very much his own man for the past 20 years as he hunted his own success.

That journey hit another milestone last November, when the Scotts Group, an investment and holding firm founded and managed by Jumabhoy, sold its minority stake in Fintrax Group, alongside majority owner Exponent Private Equity, for 585 million euros (US$653.18 million).

Jumabhoy had been Fintrax’s vice-chairman since September 2013 after Exponent partnered him to acquire the firm, which is headquartered in Ireland and provides travellers with value-added tax refund services.

He relished seeing Fintrax grow its company value by 250 per cent in two years to become a leading player, with operations in 30 countries and an annual revenue growth of 20 per cent. But, like in polo, building a successful business is never a one-man show, he stresses.

“I was fortunate to be part of a team that helped build the finance, the marketing and the management structure of a raw asset, so that it could grow further as a global business. If there is one thing I brought, it was the experience in knowing what strategies make such a business tick and how to execute them.”

He has that experience in ample supply. After leaving the family business Scotts Holdings in 1996, Jumabhoy founded Asia Tax Free Shopping, a fledgling goods and services tax refund platform, as he detected the emergence of digitisation in the transaction process.

The venture also took him back to his interest in technology, despite his focus on property development during his stint at Scotts Holdings.

“I have always loved tinkering with technology. When I was in college, I spent my summer break installing computers in offices. I can even write a (computer) program,” said Jumabhoy, who has a degree in mathematics.

Asia Tax Free Shopping quickly grew and drew the interest of Apax Partners in Britain. A 150 million euros merger soon followed, creating Global Refund in 1999.

One of his key projects was the creation of Global Refund’s dynamic currency-conversion system, which allows consumers to pay in their home currency with credit cards when abroad.

In 2007, Barclays Private Equity acquired Global Refund for 350 million euros and renamed it Global Blue in 2010. Jumabhoy stayed with Global Blue as its non-executive director until 2012, when private equity firm Silver Lake bought it for around 1 billion euros.

Add in the Fintrax transactions and he has had his hands on deals amounting to around 2.3 billion euros

His achievements in building cross-border financial and technology services did not go unnoticed, despite his habit of keeping a low profile. In 2012, he was named the chairman of IDA International, an Infocomm Development Authority subsidiary that promotes Singapore companies eyeing overseas growth in the infocomm industry.

In the coming weeks, Jumabhoy will announce his next big fintech venture. Details are still under wraps, but it will retain a focus on merchants using payment cards.

As he embarks on the next stage of his career, Jumabhoy keeps the focus of his life on his wife and four children.

“When I left Scotts Holdings, I did not have a dime with me, and I would not be here without my wife, who lent me S$250,000 (US$182,068) to start from scratch. That is why, at the end of the day, my family remains the most important thing in my life.”

But the Jumabhoy family also has a very different meaning to Singaporeans. Years of family feuds – including the much-publicised conflict between Jumabhoy’s brothers, Iqbal and Rafiq, over business control – had greatly weakened Scotts Holdings by the late 1990s, allowing CapitaLand to take over the group that included serviced residence pioneer Ascott International.

The fall of the Jumabhoys is now ingrained in Singapore’s business lore and continues to draw public attention that the family actively shun.

Jumabhoy, who worked for Scotts Holdings for 10 years but was not openly involved in any of the drama, refused to share details on the matter.

Moreover, he noted, the Jumabhoys have moved on. “In January, my father held his 90th birthday dinner, and all of us – including Iqbal and Rafiq – were there. Of course, we are still on speaking terms. If we keep looking back, we will only trip and fall.”

That his family members all went their own ways to seek their fortune may be for the best, he added.

“I don’t feel sorry or regret for the Jumabhoy family. Just as I left to create my own business, who is to say our children cannot go out, make their own mark, amass an even bigger fortune and, more importantly, have a meaningful life?”

(US$1 = 0.90 euro)

Malaysians have not only been exposed to the use of technology in banking, but are also increasingly using the digital world in their banking transactions. From the automated teller machine (ATM) where cash is withdrawn and banking services conducted, people are using computers and mobile phones to make transactions that are increasing at a fast pace.

Bank Negara has been one of the co-drivers of that change along with the financial institutions. Heading the central bank’s push in the adoption of e-payments is deputy governor Muhammad Ibrahim, a career central banker at Bank Negara.

“If you do not adopt technology, you will be left behind. You must not put constrains on it. The necessary framework must be in place,” says Muhammad.

The push to use technology has had a tangible impact on consumers and financial institutions. Customers in the comfort of their own homes no longer, for nearly most of their banking needs, have to drive to a branch to conduct a transaction.

For the banks, the use of technology means better efficiency and productivity. And taken together, it has led to savings for both consumers and banks.

Bank Negara says that banks can derive cost savings by promoting the use of e-payments over cheques and cash. In an industry where money flow generates income, there is always a cost of executing a transaction and banks incur a cost of RM2.4bil annually to process cash and cheques.

It costs RM3 to process a cheque compared with 20 to 50 sen for an interbank transaction.

The usage of technology has seen banks save RM231mil in cheque-processing costs from 2013 to 2015 and as of the end of last year, the public has saved RM611mil from the reduction in interbank giro fees.

For years, Bank Negara has been pushing for companies and individuals to reduce the use of cheques. Given the high cost of executing a cheque transaction, it is understandable why that initiative was given prominence.

But it is technology that has allowed that transition to take place and at the end of last year, interbank giro transactions surpassed the number of cheques for the first time in 2015.

“Having the banks adopt an increasing amount of e-payment methods will improve competitiveness and allow banks innovate, and this can help with new products and services that offer new value propositions and in the long run can reduce cost,” says Muhammad.

Technology has allowed individuals and businesses to migrate from cheques to e-payment and that has seen the usage of cheques decelerate significantly in recent years.

Between 2011 and 2013, cheque transactions fell 1.6 per cent but that rate of decline rose to 10 per cent in 2014. Last year, the number of cheques that changed hands fell 16 per cent.

Interbank giro transactions, on the other hand, rose 19 per cent between 2011 and 2013 and 34 per cent between 2014 and 2015.

The increase in interbank financial transfers has been even more impressive, rising 60 per cent since 2011 but 77 per cent in 2015.

What has helped fuel the usage of e-payments has not just been the wider reach of the Internet and broadband, but also the proliferation of smartphones. As technology has become more accessible to consumers, so has the use of e-payments.

It is not just the urban areas which have gained from the cost savings of e-payments.

Muhammad says the adoption of technology in rural areas has also sprouted, with people in the kampung now having access to banking where there might be no physical branches.

He says the appointment of 5,000 to 6,000 banking agents has seen to that rise. These agents are basically sole proprietors of small sundry shops or grocery shops who conduct banking transactions for people in their community.

These agents have seen a rise of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent in their income, but the money they make comes from their customers not having to travel to the nearest bank branch.

Migration to e-payments will mean that not only cost savings are shared between banks and their customers but also how banks operate.

The need for physical branches is still important, especially in rural areas, but the need for brick-and-mortar branches will decrease in time.

For banks, the employment mix will also evolve. Muhammad says technology may not necessarily mean fewer employees, but higher skilled workers to handle the increasing use of technology within financial institutions.

Not just online transactions

The use of online transactions is just one aspect of the push for e-payments by Bank Negara. It is also trying hard to displace cash usage via debit cards and progress towards that was slow in the initial years because of market distortions and structural issues.

But last year, the central bank implemented the payment card reform framework to mitigate escalation in cost and make debit card acceptance more affordable.

To support infrastructure enhancements and the expansion of point-of-sale terminals, the industry has committed to investing RM1.1bil between 2015 and 2020 and progress has been seen since. Bank Negara wants to see 800,000 point-of-sale terminals in use by 2020 and the cost of accepting payment cards started to moderate downwards and the number of point-of-sale terminals more than tripled from 5 per cent in 2014 to 18 per cent last year.

Debit card transactions recorded growth of 31 per cent last year and there are now 43 million ATM and debit cards in the country.

“Migration to e-payments is a bold reform and like any reform, it is a departure in the way we do things. But all stakeholders must gain from it, only then it can work,” says Muhammad.

“At the end of the day, people will appreciate the ease of doing business and the reduction in the cost of doing business.”

He says that e-payments is about giving people options. The use of credit cards was once blamed for the rise in bankruptcies, but how to handle the usage of cards in modern society has to be balanced through education and proper conditions like setting a minimum wage to be eligible for a credit card.

“We give people the option and it is that the consumer knows best,” says Muhammad on how people should handle financial responsibilities when it comes to e-payments.

“The consumer will know what is best for them. It is about informed decision-making.”

The rise of financial technology

Technology as a disrupter is well-documented and it is tangible in the financial world. A report yesterday said US$4.5bil was invested last year in financial start-ups in Asia and that was a four-fold increase from 2014.

Globally, investments in fintech (financial technology) last year was 60 per cent higher at US$19.1bil from 2014.

Muhammad is well aware that fintech is the future of business and like e-payments, is about the adoption of technology.

“The good thing about fintech is that it injects competition into the traditional financial services providers, including service providers,” he points out.

A prelude to fintech in Malaysia was the launch of the investment account platform by Islamic banks. In this model, borrowers would channel their proposal to that platform and the banks would pick the ones they could fund.

“It’s an innovative approach taken by the Islamic banks, but eventually it will be almost all banks. The intended borrower will go to this platform and their proposal will be accessed by the banks and rated by rating agencies. People will have a choice of financing it. This is only possible because of technology and this is the first of many that will come,” he says.

To harness the potential of fintech, regulations will likely need to be changed, which Muhammad says can easily be done. One caveat though: the protection of consumers will be of paramount importance for the central bank when it comes to fintech being rolled out for Malaysians.

“As far as financial services is concerned, we will adopt proportionate regulation proportionate to the risk. We want to balance innovation and safety for the consumer. The protection of consumer interest is extremely important to ensure there is a balance,” he says.

Muhammad says technology is here to stay and that there is no point fighting it.

“Technology is the way for us to be more competitive and innovative. What is important is for the regulator to set a framework so that fintech will operate in a safe, efficient and transparent manner,” he says.

SIA regional vice president for Southeast Asia, Philip Goh, said the airline would launch its first long-haul flight to Amsterdam on May 9, using its new Airbus A350-900 fleet.

The planes will also be deployed to destinations in Asia, including Jakarta. In July, the aircraft will be used to add services to Dusseldorf, Germany.

“Subsequently, we will launch a new destination in Europe – Dusseldorf in Germany in July 2016,” Philip said in Jakarta on Friday.

The A350 for long-haul flights will have 253 passenger seats in three classes – 42 business class, 24 premium economy class and 187 economy class seats. Philip said the new fleet would have higher ceilings, larger windows, an extra-wide body and lighting designed to reduce jetlag.

SIA has 67 Airbus planes on order, including seven ultra-long range variants that will be delivered in 2018 for non-stop services between Singapore and several destinations in the US. “[Destinations include] New York, Los Angeles and others,” he said.

In addition, the airline will launch new routes from Singapore to the Australian and New Zealand capitals, dubbed ‘Capital Express’ services. Subject to regulatory approval, the airline will operate four times a week starting from September 20 traveling Singapore-Canberra-Wellington.

SIA’s new Wellington service will add to its existing routes serving Auckland and Christchurch, while the new Canberra service will add to SIA’s extensive Australia network which currently includes Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

The airline will operate 266-seat retrofitted Boeing 777-2000s fitted with 38 business class seats and 228 economy class seats on the routes, Philip said.

Pelindo III president director Djarwo Surjanto said the system would be divided into two main sections, namely front end and back end systems. The front end system will include container, non-container and vessel service applications, among others. Meanwhile, the back end system will comprise applications related to administrative matters, such as human capital and financial management. The front end applications are targeted to be completed in September 2016.

“With container applications in the front end system, all service users will be able to monitor the position of their containers in real time. It can be estimated when their containers will arrive at the destination ports. It can all be traced online,” said Djarwo in Surabaya, East Java, last week.

The ports that will be connected with the system are Tanjung Perak (East Java), Tanjung Emas (Central Java), Lembar and Benoa (Bali), Kumai, Bumiharjo and Sampit (Central Kalimantan), Bima and Badas (West Nusa Tenggara), Maumere, Ende, Waingapu and Kalabahi (East Nusa Tenggara) and Batulicin (South Kalimantan).

Pelindo III’s move will be followed by Pelindo I, II and IV, so that 24 ports from Sumatra to Papua will be connected under a single system and form the backbone of the government’s sea toll program.

Djarwo said the development of the ICT based system was predicted to be completed within the next two years. He expressed hopes that the ICT systems in all 14 ports would be connected each other by January 2018.

With the connected system, Djarwo said, it would be easier for Pelindo III to evaluate the performance of the 14 ports under its authority, and hopefully reduce both waiting time and dwelling time.

For the first stage, Pelindo III has prepared around Rp 250 billion of the total Rp 1 trillion of investment it will use to pay consultants, buy hardware and prepare a data center. The figure does not yet include funds for building developments.

To build the ICT system, Pelindo III has conducted a comparison study with several modern ports abroad, such as the Hamburg port and Bremen port in Germany and the Rotterdam port in the Netherlands.

Megawaty Khie, the vice president and managing director of SAP Indonesia, a partner company in the development of all applications of the ICT system, said Pelindo III had taken a brave move.

“Pelindo III has created an IT revolution in Indonesia’s port industry, which is really competitive. The built applications, which will allow real time connection, will help the company expand its businesses and win the competition,” she said.

The measure is part of the group’s restructuring process.

The group’s charter capital is planned to raise to 13.5 trillion dong ($604.7 million) from its current capital of VND10.7 trillion.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) said that in order to increase Petrolimex’s charter capital and reduce the State’s ownership proportion at the group to fewer than 75 per cent of charter capital, the ministry has approved a plan to issue more ownership to Petrolimex’s foreign strategic shareholders.

The deputy prime minister reminded the ministry to revise regulations, which are unsuitable with the current situation, to ensure that foreign strategic investors will partner with Petrolimex to invest long-term in the Nam Van Phong oil refinery project in the central Khanh Hoa Province.

Previously, Nikkei reported that the Japanese JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation planned to buy 10 per cent of Petrolimex’s stake.

The Japanese partner will pay about 20 billion yen ($177 million) for its share at Petrolimex.

As of December 31, Petrolimex’s total assets reached VND51 trillion. The company earned VND146 trillion of revenue and VND3.76 trillion of pre-tax profit.

By the end of 2014, Petrolimex accounted for 48 per cent share of the petroleum distribution market in Vietnam with more than 2,300 gas stations nationwide.

The 50 million real (56.8million ringgit) facility, which would be built on a 98,000-sq-metre piece of land, would be used to manufacture monorail trains, including rolling stock and bogies.

The site was awarded to SEB by the Sao Paulo state government in recognition of its commitment to develop Brazil’s urban transport infrastructure, SEB said in a statement on Saturday.

SEB held a ground-breaking ceremony for the facility, in Taubate, southeastern Brazil, on March 10 (Thursday), which was attended by Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin; Taubat Mayor Jos Bernardo Ortiz Monteiro Jr and So Paulo city authorities officials.

SEB was represented by its country president (Brazil operations) Hilmy Zaini Zainal.

“This investment is part of our strategy to localise manufacturing of monorail trains. This will help us improve manufacturing efficiency and boost local human capital development through job creation,” Hilmy said.

All processes, as well as, manufacturing design would be in line with the Kuala Lumpur manufacturing centre.

The facility in Taubate is strategically located between the two most important Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with good access to major ports and road networks, he added.

“We have been in the Brazilian market for several years now. Since winning our maiden monorail contract for Line 17 – Gold, we have come a long way, garnering two more Brazilian projects, Manaus and Line 18 – Bronze.

“We believe there is a lot more opportunities in Brazil which we can capitalise on and our commitment to this facility will strengthen our position in this market,” said Hilmy.

When operational, the facility would manufacture monorail trains for Line 17 – Gold and Line 18 – Bronze Sao Paulo projects and have the capacity to build metro and light rail trains.

The facility will be built in phases and operations are scheduled to begin in 2017 – Bernama

Scomi Engineering’s other major overseas project is the second phase of the Mumbai monorail service.

“Kuching has been growing in stature for several years now, and is becoming a key part of the EastAsean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). Having hosted several key regional events, such as the AseanTourism Forum and Routes Asia, Kuching is now firmly on the map for both leisure and business travel,” said Olivier Berrivin, Best Western Hotels & Resorts’ managing director of international operations – Asia.

Scheduled to open in 2018, the new-build Best Western Plus Kuching will offer 200 contemporary rooms and suites, all equipped with flat-screen televisions and international satellite channels, mini-bars, comfortable beds and complimentary Wi-Fi.

“This exciting project will showcase the 21st Century vision of Best Western Hotels & Resorts, to provide modern, well-connected and value-for-money accommodation in the key Asian destinations. Best Western provides exemplary service to our guests and I have no doubt that the Best Western Plus Kuching will become very popular with travelers,” he concluded.

Best Western Hotels & Resorts currently operates three hotels in Malaysia: Best Western i-City Shah Alam, Best Western Petaling Jaya, and Best Western Premier The Haven Ipoh.

This was in response to recent press reports which said that Petronas was close to pulling out of the project, following frustrations with the stance of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate-change priorities and the introduction of new uncertainties for the project.

The new federal Liberal government in Canada is toughening up environmental reviews of major energy projects as it strives to meet international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A Canadian newspaper had quoted sources as saying that Petronas was threatening to walk away if it didn’t get federal approval by March 31.

“The Canadian environmental impact assessment process for the PNW LNG project is still ongoing, following which a final report will be produced by the relevant agency to be submitted to the Canadian government for approval,” Petronas said in the statement.

“Petronas, together with the project shareholders, will review the said final report and evaluate conditions attached to the report to further determine their impact on the overall cost structure and schedule of the project,” it said.

“The outcome, reviewed together with the LNG market outlook and overall project commerciality, will be used to develop the proposal for an investment decision to be considered by the PNW LNG shareholders,” it said.

Petronas added that it would update with more information as and when necessary.

Petronas and its partners are seeking to build an LNG terminal on the Lax Kw’alaams territory on Lelu Island as part of the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG project, in which Petronas has a 62% interest.

So far, Petronas has spent about US$12 billion (RM49.2 billion) on this project.

It has encountered multiple obstacles, including aboriginal and environmental movement opposition.

“If Petronas were to walk away now, it would lose an investment of about US$12 billion. Is Petronas willing to bite the bullet?” asked one oil and gas (O&G) analyst.

Another analyst said if Petronas were to walk away now, it would also be very difficult to find a buyer for the asset at this stage.

“I think it is important that Petronas makes a business decision on this project soon,” added the O&G analyst.

Last month, this project had received a mostly favourable assessment from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

The proposed facility will comprise an initial development of two LNG trains of about six million tonnes per annum (MTPA) each, and a subsequent development of a third train of six MTPA. It will liquefy and export natural gas produced by Progress Energy Canada in north-eastern British Columbia.

It was also given the green light by the British Columbia government in November 2014, and received conditional corporate support – or an FID – from Petronas and its partners in June of last year.

To recap, Petronas bought Canada’s Progress Energy Resources in 2012 in a deal worth US$5 billion that gave it shale gas properties in north-eastern British Columbia.

Since then, Petronas has sold equity interets in the company and its LNG assets to four partners, namely Japan Petroleum Exploration Co Ltd (10%), Petroleum Brunei (3%), Indian Oil Corp Ltd (10%), and China Petrochemical Corp (15%).

Earlier this month, Petronas group chief executive officer Datuk Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin had acknowledged that Petronas was facing cashflow problems due to the prevailing low oil price environment, which necessitated its RM50 billion cut in capital expenditure and operating expenditure from this year up until 2020.

Between RM15 billion and RM20 billion worth of expenditure will be cut from the oil giant’s budget for this year alone, the bulk of which is likely to come from the upstream segment.

However, he reiterated that Petronas was committed to paying out RM16 billion in dividends to the Government from its operations last year as previously announced.

It said the first flight will take off from Bangkok at 11am on May 25 and land at Da Nang International Airport around 12.35pm.

The return flight will leave from Da Nang at 13.35pm and arrive in Bangkok at 15.15pm.

As scheduled, the flight will be operated on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with 144 Economy class seats on an Airbus 319.

The direct flight route operation from Bangkok to Da Nang was a result of the co-operation and investment in tourism and trade between the city and Thai General Consul in HCM City from 2012.

In February, travel firm Viettravel also offered direct charter flights between the city and Bangkok on Thai Vietjet in order to boost tourism between the central region of Vietnam and Thai destinations.

According to the city, import-export turnover between Thailand and Da Nang reached US$30.2 million, of which $28.5 million were exports from Thailand.

Thailand has only had one investment project in Da Nang so far with total value of $10,000.

The central city attracts around 700 tourists from Thailand annually.

Da Nang has hosted the annual East-West Corridor Trade Fair since 2007, which attracted businesses from Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Da Nang, which is situated at the end of the East-West Economic Corridor – linking Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, is connected by 19 international routes with over 4 million tourists in 2015.