Samson Leo is currently the Chief Legal Officer of Fazz and StraitsX (formerly Xfers), which are both high-growth “Fintech 250” companies. Since his time as co-founder and Chief Legal Officer in Xfers, he has grown Xfers from a 3-person start-up to a regional company with more than 200 people across Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Philippines, and now more than 600 people in the merger to form Fazz. Today, he leads group legal & regulatory matters, across financial regulations, financial crime & compliance, AML/CFT, and strategic commercial deals. Additionally, Samson engages with MAS on the regulatory framework and changes for the Payment Services Act, most recently for the upcoming MAS regulated-stablecoin framework, for which 3 subsidiaries under the StraitsX brand have received MAS Major Payment Institution licences.
Under Samson’s leadership, Fazz (StraitsX, formerly Xfers) has been recognised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and has also received 8 police awards to date for continued efforts in fighting cybercrime.
Samson was also awarded the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award and the LexisNexis 40 Under 40, with him and his team coming in as finalists for 3 categories of the ALB Southeast Asia Law Awards (2023,2024) and the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Asia Pacific (2024).
Samson is also a recognised speaker in the legal field. He has been invited to speak at workshops and events such as the ASEAN Senior Officials Roundtable on Cybercrime 2023, Digital Assets Asia 2023, IIC Asia Telecommunications & Media Forum 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (OPDAT) FinTech Sector Partnership Dialogue 2020, the “Seminar on Payment Services Act” organised by the Law Society of Singapore in 2019 and the ASEAN Regulatory Summit 2018.
