Chinese financial giant Ant Group has soft-launched its digital bank in Singapore: Anext Bank. The bank will be led by Toh Su Mei, a former executive of DBS Bank.
Photo credit: Anext Bank
In a statement, Anext Bank said it will focus on providing digital financial services to local and regional MSMEs, especially those that engage in cross-border operations.
The bank provided a preview of its Anext Business Account – a dual-currency deposit account with three-factor authentication verification, remote onboarding, and daily interest features. The business account will be available to general users in the third quarter of this year.
Anext Bank also partnered with B2B platform Proxtera, which has more than 400,000 SMEs in its network. After this collaboration, those SMEs will gain access to loans from the digital bank.
In 2020, the Monetary Authority of Singapore awarded digital wholesale bank licenses to Ant Group and a consortium consisting of Greenland Financial Holdings, Linklogis Hong Kong, and Beijing Co-operative Equity Investment Fund Management. It also granted digital full bank licenses to Sea Group as well as to a consortium involving Grab Holdings and Singtel.
See also: The tech companies bankrolling Indonesia’s digital banks
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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