Funding for SG fintech players hits a high in 2022

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Happy 2023!

New year, new start. For me, that means clearing out a pile of old receipts and other miscellanea in my wallet, like that birthday voucher I never got around to using.

One thing that I no longer carry around, however, is loyalty stamp cards – printed ones, that is. That’s because they’ve been replaced by loyalty apps, and consumers now have to download one for every retailer or F&B establishment they frequent.

So really, we’ve just exchanged wallet space for megabytes in our phones. But could a rewards club that recently landed in Singapore change that?

In this week’s Hot Take, I discuss a new digital loyalty program called Yuu. It was launched by Minden.ai, a tech venture founded by Temasek and supermarket operator DFI Group.

Yuu has partnered with household names like DBS Bank, Breadtalk Group, and Singtel, allowing consumers to use it at over 1,000 places at the onset. That could explain why the app had over 800,000 registered users as of December, less than three months after its rollout. But more importantly, Yuu does away with a major albeit first-world inconvenience: juggling multiple rewards apps.

Also in the spirit of the new year, our Big Story this week brings you up to speed with Singapore’s key fintech players and trends in our signature landscape map format. Given the proliferation of negative headlines about tech in the second half of 2022, it may be surprising that as a whole, the fintech sector hit a record in deal value and count last year.

— Melissa

THE BIG STORIES

1️⃣ The key players in Singapore’s thriving fintech space (update)

Image credit: Timmy Loen

In 2022, funding for fintech startups in Singapore reached a peak of 85 deals, amounting to US$2.31 billion.

2️⃣ From build to scale: Tonik Bank eyes unit profitability in 2023

THE HOT TAKE

NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW