Remittance startup Nium pulls out of Singapore digital banking license race

Singapore-based remittance company Nium has decided to withdraw its bid for a digital banking license in the city-state as it focuses on its global payments business instead.

MAS headquarters in central Singapore / Photo credit: Tech in Asia

While Singapore is a key market for the company, it is only one of the 41 countries it serves, and the firm has decided to shift its focus to new markets, with a “strong” emphasis on Latin America, said Nium co-founder and CEO Prajit Nanu in a LinkedIn post.

“The core of Nium has grown 3x this year and slated to grow 4x next year,” Nanu wrote. “It made lot of sense for us to focus our energies to grow the core faster instead of a distraction. As a four-year-old startup, we have decided to pick a fight which we will win.”

According to a report by the Straits Times, Nium is looking to acquire new electronic money institution licenses for card issuing and stored value facilities in Mexico and Brazil.

Backed by Temasek Holdings’ Vertex Ventures and Rocket Internet, Nium enables businesses to send, spend, and receive money globally. It also offers off-the-shelf products and integrations for enterprise tech stacks to make cross-border transactions more convenient.

It recently rebranded from Instarem, which will remain a digital remittance solution that is now powered by the Nium platform.

In July, the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that it will issue up to five new digital bank licenses, which will include non-bank players. The new licenses are set to include up to two digital full bank licenses and three digital wholesale bank licenses.

With the former, licensees will be authorized to provide a range of financial services and take deposits from retail customers. With the wholesale license, operators will be allowed to serve small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as other non-retail segments.

According to media reports, OCBC is in discussions with Keppel Corp and peer-to-peer lender Validus to apply for a digital wholesale banking license together as a consortium before the year-end application deadline.