Hong Kong: Mox Names StanChart’s Anshul Sabherwal CEO After First Half-Year Profit
Mox Bank, the Hong Kong digital bank backed by Standard Chartered, has a new chief executive. Anshul Sabherwal, a long-time Standard Chartered card and lending executive, took over on 10 November 2026. He replaces Barbaros Uygun, who led the bank for five years and has now stepped down.
The change comes just months after Mox reported its first half-year profit. That makes the next phase less about survival and more about growing revenue from wealth products and lending.
Key facts
- New CEO: Anshul Sabherwal, effective 10 November 2026. He is the third person to lead Mox since it launched in September 2020, after Deniz Güven and Barbaros Uygun.
- Background: He was Managing Director and Head of Products for Credit Cards, Personal Loans and Payments at Standard Chartered Hong Kong, and earlier held senior roles at Citi in Taiwan and Poland.
- Customers: Mox has close to 800,000 customers, about five times as many as when Uygun took charge.
- Profit: Mox broke even in the first quarter of 2026 and posted a pre-tax profit of HK$8.63 million for the first half of the year, its first interim profit.
- Growth: Operating income rose 69% year on year to HK$513 million in the first half, and deposits reached HK$20.9 billion.
Who is the new boss, and why him?
Sabherwal comes from inside the wider Standard Chartered group. In Hong Kong, the group’s biggest market, he ran the credit card and personal loan business and handled its partnerships with other companies. Mox says he has more than 20 years of experience in banking for everyday customers.
That background fits where Mox makes its money. Most of its income still comes from the gap between what it earns on loans and what it pays on deposits. In the first half of 2026, this net interest income rose 52% to HK$452 million. A leader who knows cards and personal loans can push that engine harder. In his first comments, Sabherwal said Mox is well placed to grow faster and to make wealth management easier for ordinary customers to reach.
Uygun leaves a different bank from the one he joined in 2021. Under him, Mox grew its customer base fivefold and also packaged its technology so it could be reused. That system helped Standard Chartered build Trust Bank, its digital bank in Singapore.
Why it matters
Hong Kong’s banking regulator, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), licensed a group of “virtual banks” around 2019 and 2020. These banks have no branches and serve customers only through an app. For years, most of them lost money while they paid for technology and marketing to win customers from big, trusted banks.
Mox reaching profit, even a small one, shows that an app-only bank can cover its costs in a crowded market. Its customers now make up roughly 15% of the people in Hong Kong who use banks. The hard part now is earning more from each customer, not just signing up new ones. That usually means selling more loans, cards and investment products without taking on too much risk.
The handover is also a test for the wider region. Digital banks across Asia, including those in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, face the same question: once the app is built and the customers are in, can it become a steady business? Mox’s numbers under its new leader will be closely watched as one answer.
What to watch
- Whether Mox stays profitable in its full-year 2026 results, and how fast its lending and wealth income grows.
- Any new credit card, personal loan or investment products launched under Sabherwal.
- Whether other Hong Kong virtual banks follow Mox into profit, or face pressure to merge or change owners.
Related on FinDeskAsia: How Malaysia’s payment system works.
Sources: Fintech News Hong Kong (November 2026); AASTOCKS (November 2026); Fintech News Hong Kong (September 2026); FF News (September 2026).
