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Benjamin Lee
Chief Operating Officer
Nexus Global Payments
View LinkedIn profileBenjamin Lee is Interim Chief Operating Officer of Nexus Global Payments (NGP), where he leads the operationalisation of the company responsible for establishing Nexus — a pioneering multilateral arrangement that connects domestic fast payment systems to enable seamless cross-border payments. He brings extensive experience in central banking, international finance, public sector leadership and financial infrastructure, with a particular focus on payments innovation and cross-border connectivity.
Benjamin has been closely involved in the development of Nexus from its inception, having served as Product Owner and Implementation Lead before assuming his current role as part of NGP’s Executive Management Team. He has contributed to the progression of Nexus from an experimental initiative of the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub (BISIH) into a Singapore-headquartered, not-for-profit company co-owned by participating central banks.
Prior to joining NGP, Benjamin was a senior member of the BISIH Singapore Centre, including serving as Acting Centre Head. He previously held senior roles at the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Singapore’s Ministry of Finance, where his work covered international engagement and public finance administration. From 2014 to 2016, he was based in Washington, DC, representing Singapore on the Executive Board of the World Bank Group.
Speaking at SFF 2026
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3:50–4:30pmFri 20 NovPolicy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpenModerator
Policy Rewiring
Asia's Payments Moment: Building Connectivity Across ASEAN and Beyond
About this session
Bilateral links between Asia's national instant-payment systems already exist and are multiplying. QR code interoperability between several member states has been live for years, built one country pair at a time. The next opportunity is a genuinely connected system, one where a payment initiated in any linked market settles instantly in any other, without each pair of countries negotiating its own bridge. As Singapore prepares to take over the ASEAN chairmanship from the Philippines in 2027, regional payment connectivity is shaping up to be one of the flagship items on its agenda, and this session is where that opportunity gets mapped out, a year ahead of time.
This panel brings together central bank representatives from across ASEAN and India to discuss what a genuinely connected instant-payment system could unlock: aligning local-currency settlement frameworks, building on the links already in place, from ASEAN's QR interoperability to the UPI-PayNow corridor, to reach true multilateral interoperability, and establishing the shared governance that lets partners trust a system built together rather than one at a time. Attendees leave with a clear view of the progress already made, what Singapore's incoming ASEAN chairmanship could prioritise, and how close the wider region actually is to instant payments that work the same way whether you're paying across the street or across a border.
