Mad frenzy for Singapore’s digital banking license

Dear readers,

It seems that many of the region’s internet giants are gunning for Singapore’s digital banking license. Ant Financial, Grab/Singtel, Razer, and yes, even TikTok owner Bytedance have thrown their hats into the ring.

(And we heard that another ecommerce and gaming giant is about to join the fray. Stay tuned – you’ll surely read about that on Tech in Asia.)

That might seem strange. After all, Singapore’s tiny population means there are few consumer deposits to tap, as my colleague Melissa Goh previously explained.

So what are they targeting? Corporate deposits.

Singapore’s status as a leading corporate domicile means many multinational businesses have established their Asia-Pacific headquarters in the city.

It also helps that the wholesale digital banking license is open to foreign companies.

With Singapore set to be a leading cross-border financial center, access to bank accounts here essentially means access to the region.

Perhaps a perfect storm’s brewing for an attractive digital banking business.

Moving on to last week’s content, I wrote about how it’s been a great decade for Southeast Asia’s tech scene, and this chart illustrates it all:

It’s also worth mentioning how India’s story has been similar. As for China, just look at how many of its unicorns didn’t exist in the past decade: Xiaomi, Ant Financial, and Pinduoduo, just to name a few.

Taken together, Asia’s tech scene has truly evolved in the past decade.

Zooming in on Southeast Asia, we track how oil giant Shell has been looking to solve logistics through a spinoff startup. It’s competing against other logistics platforms like Janio and Kargo.

As ecommerce grows in the region, this space is one to watch as well.

As always, check out the rest of the recent premium content here. Do subscribe if you want to read them.

Cheers,

Terence
Editor-in-chief