Shane Ian Murphy

Lessons on choosing and keeping business partners across three financial centres, and how they shape the way I build Global Secure and TriParty.

Good partners are chosen slowly, and that is the first lesson in these Shane Murphy Nassau notes, which are really about three other cities: Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE.

Nassau gives the notes their name because, as an outside observer, I find it a useful picture of a capital whose job is partly to connect places separated by water and distance. I have no business there and none of my companies operates there. My own working life runs between Ireland, where I am based, and the UAE and Asia, and my business contacts are mainly in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE. The home page lists my companies and roles; this piece is about what working across those three centres has taught me about partners.

I will not name anyone or describe any particular deal. These are lessons, not case studies.

Lesson one: trust is built in writing

In every one of these centres, the people I respect most prefer clear documents to warm words. A good first meeting is welcome, but it is the written terms that people come back to.

That suits the way TriParty Tokenisation works. As a co-founder and partner, I am part of a process where documents and independent assay or inspection reports are reviewed before any work begins, and tokens are placed with nominated trading counterparties under definitive agreements. Definitive is the important word. A partnership that exists only in conversation is not yet a partnership.

Lesson two: time zones decide the shape of a relationship

Singapore and Hong Kong sit close together in time; the UAE sits several hours apart; Ireland is further again. That spread means the shared working hours are short, and how you use them says a lot about how you treat a partner.

I keep the shared hours for decisions and leave reading and drafting for the edges of the day. A partner who is always the one staying up late, or always the one waiting a day for an answer, will eventually feel like the junior party, whatever the contract says.

I also try to share the inconvenience. If one month’s calls fall late in the evening for a contact in Singapore or Hong Kong, the next month’s can fall early in the morning for me in Ireland. It is a small gesture of fairness, but over a long working relationship small gestures add up.

Shane Murphy Nassau notes on language and respect

Meetings across these centres are often held in English, but English is not everyone’s first language. People read more carefully, and agree more confidently, in the language they grew up with.

That observation is one of the reasons Global Secure, the all-in-one financial ecosystem app I founded, plans to support more than 30 languages at launch. Global Secure is coming in 2027 and is not live; pre-registration is open at www.globalsecureapp.com. Respecting a partner’s language and respecting a customer’s language turn out to be the same habit.

Lesson four: say what you will not do

The partners I value most like to know my limits early. It saves everyone time. So I state them at the start:

• Global Secure is debit only. No credit cards and no lending.
• Its planned profit share, 10% of net profit in a ring-fenced pot shared after 12 continuous paid months, is a share of profit, not a guaranteed return.
• TriParty offers no guaranteed returns and no guaranteed liquidity, and its tokens are not stablecoins.
• TriParty works on one asset, one smart contract and one token issuance. No pooling.
• Ownership of an asset does not move; the structure uses custody agreements.

Stating limits is not a negotiating weakness. In my experience across these three centres, it is what makes the rest of the conversation possible. A partner who knows from the first call that there will be no credit products, no pooling and no guarantees can decide quickly whether the fit is right, and nobody spends months discovering it later.

Lesson five: choose partners who are comfortable saying no

At TriParty, many submissions are turned down after review. I have come to see that as a quality to look for in partners as well. Someone who agrees to everything is not checking anything.

Here is the short checklist I use before committing to any new working relationship:

1. Do they put the important terms in writing without being asked?
2. Do they explain their own limits as clearly as their strengths?
3. Do they answer within the shared working hours, or explain when they cannot?
4. Do their public details match what they told me in person?
5. Are they willing to say no to me when something does not fit?

If the answers are mostly yes, I go ahead with confidence. If not, I would rather know at the start.

My background in British telecoms, at BT and at CAE, a boxxe Group company, and founding Limitless Mobile in the United States, gave me the first version of this checklist. Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE refined it. Further reflections on cross-border work are in the articles section.

Questions people ask

Do you work in Nassau?

No. I write about Nassau as an outside observer. I am based in Ireland and spend much of my time in the UAE and Asia.

Which of the three centres is most important to you?

All three matter. My business contacts are mainly in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE, and each has taught me something different about working with partners.

What is the single most useful habit with a new partner?

Put it in writing early, including the things you will not do.

Those are my Shane Murphy Nassau notes on partners: write it down, respect the clock, respect the language, state your limits and value the people who can say no. They are lessons I, Shane Ian Murphy, expect to keep learning for as long as my work crosses borders.

*Shane Ian Murphy is the founder of Global Secure (www.globalsecureapp.com) and a co-founder and partner of TriParty Tokenisation (www.tripartytokenisation.com). Official site: shaneianmurphy.com*

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