How this 50-year-old cashless payments pioneer is planning a comeback

A fintech pioneer watches from the sidelines as up-and-comers jostle for a coveted license that will allow them to operate payments services in Singapore.

The veteran player may lack youth, but it has a trump card up its sleeve.

Photo credit: Diners Club

DCS Card Centre – formerly Diners Club Singapore – introduced cashless payments in the city-state in the 1970s before fading from the limelight as alternatives offered by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express flooded the market.

But DCS is betting that it can reverse that decline with a rare superpower: a credit and charge card license governed by the Banking Act.

DCS is one of the only two non-bank financial institutions in Singapore that has the license. The other license holder is American Express International.

Payment schemes like Visa and Mastercard do not have card-issuing capabilities and typically work with banks and financial institutions to launch credit cards.

The credit and charge card license exempts DCS from having to apply for specific licenses to operate activities governed under the Payment Services Act, such as account issuance, merchant acquiring, and digital payment token services.

This puts the firm in a “unique position” to roll out products targeted at segments like small and medium-sized enterprises – clients that banks aren’t incentivized to serve, Karen Low, chief executive officer of DCS, tells Tech in Asia.

In addition, while fintech firms can only do “certain types of activities” permitted under their licenses via the Payments Services Act, DCS “can do everything” that the banks can do related to credit card and payments services, she adds.

Low would know a thing or two about what banks are capable of doing. Before joining DCS, she headed the cards and unsecured lending division at Maybank Singapore and Malaysia. She also held similar roles at DBS and UOB from 2001.

A fintech and banking “hybrid”

Positioning itself as a fintech “hybrid” is at the heart of the company’s strategy: DCS can launch the same products and services that banks can, offering them to underserved segments at a faster pace but at a fraction of the cost.

DCS, which is primarily in the business of card issuance, merchant acquiring, and payments processing, currently commands 4% of the market and has a card base of 300,000 in Singapore. Low has set aggressive targets for the company – doubling its market share in the next 24 months and hitting breakeven by 2026.

To achieve these goals, DCS is beefing up its card offerings. While it used to issue Diner Club cards exclusively, it now issues cards that target niche segments in partnership with payments majors like Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay – and soon JCB – as well.

Reinventing itself

Digital assets targeting the underserved