Why digital bank GXBank puts profit before financial inclusion

This article summarizes an episode of Fintech Fireside Asia’s video series featuring Hildah Hamzah, deputy CEO of GXBank.

Hildah Hamzah, deputy CEO and COO of GXBank/ Photo credit: Hildah Hamzah

Financial inclusion fails if the institution providing it cannot survive. In digital banking, inclusion and commercial discipline depend on each other.

Hildah Hamzah, deputy CEO and COO of GXBank, frames the tension plainly: a bank that wants to serve people left out of finance still has to make money, protect deposits. It also has to keep the confidence of customers, employees, investors, and regulators.

Inclusion needs a bank that can stay open

Serving people excluded from banking costs money, and that cost doesn’t disappear because the mission is social good. Hamzah rejects the idea that a bank can separate impact from its own finances.

If it cannot pay staff, raise capital, manage losses, and protect depositors, it will eventually stop serving the customers it set out to help.

For her, solvency comes first. “Every business that wants to do good must first feed itself and take care of the people who work for that business… I need to make sure I take care of our people and my shareholders’ expectations. Money is not free.”

Finance aimed at inclusion has to absorb a hard lesson. Fast growth funded by subsidies can improve access for a while, but if each account or loan loses too much money, the service may not last.

Her zakat example, the Islamic practice of giving to those in need, makes the same point in religious and social terms: giving requires surplus first. For digital banks, that translates into building inclusion targets into capital plans, loss estimates, product design, and regulatory discussions.

Profit creates room to test harder ideas

Once a bank has a durable financial base, it has more room to test new ways of serving customers who are harder to assess.

A profitable bank can trial new methods for judging borrowers, serve people with little credit history, and absorb controlled mistakes. A bank losing money has less room to learn and may return to safer customers.

“The moment you start being profitable, your ability to do good grows exponentially… It gives you space to innovate and take more calculated risks, so you can push out meaningful changes, not cosmetic ones,” she explains.

Better lending to first-time borrowers depends on enough margin, capital, and trust from investors and regulators to keep improving the model.

Depositors matter as much as borrowers. GXBank has passed more than a billion ringgit in loans and more than a billion ringgit in deposits. That scale requires stronger controls, clearer communication, tighter cash management, and better customer protection.

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