Mr Sion Yoong Tian > WongPartnership LLP > Singapore, Singapore > Lawyer Profile

Mr Sion Yoong Tian

+65 6416 2488 sionyoong.tian@wongpartnership.com View profile

Work Department

Financial Services Regulatory.

Position

Partner – Financial Services Regulatory, the Derivatives & Structured Products, and the FinTech Practices.

Career

His  main practice areas are financial services regulatory, FinTech, blockchain, and derivatives & structured products (both transactional and regulatory).

Significant transactions that Sion Yoong has been involved in include advising / acting for the following:

• EFG Bank on the unique regulatory issues which arose from the statutory transfer of business being effected from BSI Bank, whose regulatory status as an approved merchant bank in Singapore was being withdrawn by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”). The statutory transfer of business took place as a parallel process to the global acquisition of BSI and its subsidiaries by EFG International. This was the first time in over 30 years that MAS had ordered a merchant bank to be shut down.
• A consortium comprising local and overseas corporations, in respect of their application to MAS for a digital wholesale bank licence. This marks the first time that MAS is issuing banking licences to applicants of non-bank parentage under a new digital bank licensing regime.
• Coinhako, a Singapore-incorporated digital assets service provider, on the financial services licensing and regulatory requirements under the Payment Services Act 2019 (No. 2 of 2019) (“PSA”) applicable to its operation of a cryptocurrency exchange, and the various other incidental services that it intends to carry out. We have assisted Coinhako in successfully obtaining an in-principle approval for a payment services licence under the PSA to provide digital payment token services.
• Xfers, an e-money issuer, in respect of its cutting-edge use of blockchain-based stablecoins to represent e-money for payment transactions.
• IBM in relation to its roll-out of the IBM Blockchain World Wire, a real-time global payments network facilitated through the use of blockchain digital assets.
• A major European bank on legal and regulatory issues pertaining to the issuance of equity-linked retail structured notes in Singapore.Awards & Accolades:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Sion Yoong’s expertise in Banking & Finance Regulatory matters and Securitisation & Derivatives has been recognised by Chambers Asia-Pacific – Asia-Pacific’s Leading Lawyers for Business, where clients have highlighted his “industry knowledge” and that he is “well abreast of the market and legal issues” and “responsive and very patient and helpful in our matters”.Sion Yoong is a recommended lawyer in The Legal 500: Asia Pacific – The Client’s Guide to the Asia Pacific Legal Profession for the areas of Financial Services Regulatory and Structured Finance, Derivatives and Securitisation. He is commended for having “very good domain knowledge in blockchain technology and the accompanying legal issues”

Publication & Legal Updates:

• Butterworths Journal of International Banking & Financial Law – Inside and outside Singapore’s proposed FinTech regulatory sandbox: balancing supervision and innovation 2016
• IFLR1000 – Developments in the regulation of digital advisory services 2017
• SID Directors Bulletin – Understanding Initial Coin Offerings 2019
• SAL Practitioner – A Guide to Digital Token Offerings: Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Roadmap for Regulation of Blockchain-based Digital Tokens 2019

Languages

English

Education

National University of Singapore (LL.B., Hons.)