Lawrence Chan

Lawrence brings close to 30 years of deep and diversified experience to his position as Group CEO of NETS.

He is responsible for the companies in NETS Group, positioning the organisation as the industry operator, builder of payment infrastructure and winning the hearts and minds of consumers and merchants. Under his leadership, Lawrence has successfully increased digital payment adoption through NETS wide merchant network domestically and enabled cross-border payments where connectivity with overseas payments rails have been established.

To differentiate NETS in the rapidly evolving digital payment space, Lawrence is focusing on driving NETS value proposition through innovative solutions, aligning to the organisation’s purpose statement – Connecting Communities, Empowering Lives.

Prior to joining NETS, he served as Vice President – Regional Client Management, Asia Pacific for Visa and was responsible for managing regional acquirers and regional merchants. Lawrence also previously held leadership positions at PayPal and American Express. At PayPal, he was Vice President and General Manager for Japan and Southeast Asia. He also served as a Director on the Board of PayPal Pte Ltd until 2015. At American Express, he was based in Japan for four years, where he led the Merchant business before returning to Singapore and assuming the position of Senior Vice President, Global Payment Options, Asia Pacific.

Lawrence currently serves on the Payment sub-committee at the Singapore FinTech Association and as a Fellow at Singapore University of Social Sciences, where he provides advice and serves as a resource in the university’s FinTech teaching and research activities. Additionally, he serves as a Board member of the Catholic Foundation, a non-profit organisation and as Chairman, Board of Governors of SJI.

In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the Innovation Leadership Achievement Award by The Asian Banker in 2023 and the IBF Distinguished Fellow, Financial Markets in 2024.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics (Honours) degree from The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.