Daily Briefing: DBS clashes against China's fintech titans; Temasek injects US$20m in bioengineering firm Medisix

And here's why an NUS professor called the launch of Tengah flats bluff.

From Bloomberg Finance:

DBS is racing against the speedy technological advancement of Chinese fintech giants like Tencent, and according to CEO Piyush Gupta, he is "uncomfortably close" to the tension between them and traditional banks.

The chief executive officer of Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings Ltd. has been trying to re-engineer his brick-and-mortar bank so that it operates more like a technology company, in order to give it a better chance in the struggle with Chinese online payment firms Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Ant Financial, owned by billionaire Jack Ma. Both companies are targeting DBS’s core markets of Southeast Asia and India for expansion.

'We are in the front line,' said Gupta, 58, who took over at DBS in 2009 after rising up the ranks at Citigroup Inc. DBS is more exposed than U.S. and European counterparts because technology firms like Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. have been slower than the Chinese to diversity into online finance, he said, adding that U.S. banks 'could afford to be a little more sanguine.'

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From Deal Street Asia:

Temasek is on a tear as it has injected US$20m into Singapore-based MediSix Therapeutics during its Series A financing. The firm develops cellular therapies targeting T-cell leukaemia and lymphoma.

"MediSix said proceeds from the Series A financing, which was led by global venture capital firm Lightstone Ventures and joined by Osage University Partners, will be used to expand the startup’s team, advance product development, and initiate early pre-clinical studies. Founded this year by Professor Dario Campana, MediSix utilises proprietary immune engineering approaches that enable T cell leukaemias and lymphomas to be targeted with cell therapy."

Read more here.

From iCompareLoan:

HDB will launch its first batch of flats in Tengah by November 2018, but NUS adjunct professor Tay Kheng Soon has expressed concerns about the destruction of the secondary forest in Tengah.

"In November 2016, Mr Tay Kheng Soon, an adjunct professor at NUS Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment expressed concerns about the destruction of the secondary forest in Tengah and wrote a letter to the Forum page of The Straits Times (ST). He said that the letter went unpublished.

Mr Tay who is also the founding member of the independent think-tank, Future of Singapore, in saying that ‘calling Tengah a Forest Town is a bluff’, suggested that concerned Singaporeans should help prevent the destruction of the only large forest land on the west of Singapore from being built upon."

Read more here.