John Ho is the Global Head of Legal, Financial Markets for Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”), overseeing and providing legal advisory, transactional and documentation support for Financial Markets (FM) business globally for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), its branches and affiliates.
 
Mr Ho is on the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on the Legal, Regulatory and Supervisory Frameworks, and the FIA Asia Pacific Advisory Board. Mr. Ho is also the co-chair of (1) the ISDA South East Asia Legal and Regulatory Committee and (2) the ISDA Asia Pacific ESG Working group. Mr. Ho is a member of the panel of experts of P.R.I.M.E. Finance, the financial markets dispute resolution service based in The Hague.
 
Mr. Ho plays an active role in implementing changes within SCB to conform to applicable OTC regulatory reforms impacting FM business. He has been involved in fostering closer working relationship and rapport with industry groups and regulators on key global and regional regulatory reform changes, including Interbank Offered Rate (IBOR) reforms, MIFID II/MIFIR, Dodd Frank, EMIR, CRDIV, FATCA, CCPs and Margin Reforms for Uncleared Derivatives.
 
In addition, Mr. Ho has supported digitisation in SCB and adoption of new or innovative technology initiatives such as blockchain, distributed ledger technology and smart contracts. He is an active participant in the industry’s Fintech events and has shared insights on the legal and regulatory framework relating to the development of Cross-Border Payments, Fintech, Digital Assets, Stablecoins, Web3 and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). He has acted as a mentor for the UK FCA Sustainability TechSprint, FCA Digital Sandbox,  R3 and LongHash, both global incubator networks which provide a full range of support for start-ups working on blockchain or distributed ledger related projects.
 
Prior to joining SCB, Mr. Ho was the Managing Director Principal in the legal department of Bear Stearns (Japan), Ltd (“Bear Stearns”) where he supported the Asia franchise covering various structured products and derivatives.
 
Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Mr. Ho worked as Asia equity counsel for Lehman Brothers in Tokyo with experience dealing in convertibles, options, warrants, delta one products and other types of equity derivatives transactions, equity finance and equity capital markets.
 
He is qualified as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore since 1995 and he received his law degree from the National University of Singapore.