Before his appointment, Tan had served for 23 years as CEO of Malaysia's Southern Bank. He retired from that position in 2006, after Southern Bank was acquired by Malaysia's second largest bank, Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings.
Based in Singapore and Malaysia,Tan's duties include driving the use of mobile devices for consumer services, via a technology known as Near Field Communication (NFC).
NFC is a form of wireless connectivity which allows for high-speed data transfer rates between two devices over a short range.