OCBC sets up board committee on ethics and conduct

It will be chaired by OCBC bank chairman Ooi Sang Kuang.

OCBC Bank has set up what it claims to be the first Ethics and Conduct Board Committee by a Singapore bank.

The new Board Committee has held its first meeting and laid out its expectations and standards for all 29,000 employees of the OCBC Group to sustain and grow a strong culture of responsible banking and fair dealing.

The new Ethics and Conduct Board Committee is chaired by OCBC bank chairman Ooi Sang Kuang and includes two other directors who are Lee Tih Shih and Christina Ong. It provides oversight of policies, guidelines and programmes that support a strong and responsible organisation culture firmly founded on its core values and the spirit of long-term thinking.

Ooi, who has been OCBC Bank’s Chairman since 2014, was previously deputy governor and a board director of Bank Negara Malaysia. Lee, an associate professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School, has previously held senior positions at both OCBC Bank and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) whilst Ong is the co-chairman and senior partner of law firm Allen & Gledhill.

OCBC noted that their bank’s new culture and conduct management committee chaired by its group CEO Samuel Tsien will implement initiatives to improve existing policies and programmes and roll out new ones on ethics and conduct.