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

This is the latest version of the article that was first published in January 2021. Since then, we’ve updated the list to add newly funded players.

In 2022, funding to fintech startups in Singapore reached a peak of US$2.31 billion across 85 deals, up 13% from US$2.04 billion across 66 deals a year ago.

Among the sectors that piqued investor interest was earned-wage access. Circopay and GetPaid were startups that began offering the payroll deduction feature in the city-state, raising VC funding in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

The buy now, pay later space also saw consolidation with the acquisition of Hoolah by ShopBack and Rely by Pace. In response to growing demand for the flexibility of installment-based payments, incumbent banks like United Overseas Bank and DBS have also introduced similar offerings.

What’s not apparent in the funding chart is that 2022 was the year when digital banks – many backed by corporate giants instead of VCs – burst into the scene in Singapore. Full digital bank GXS, the joint venture between Grab and Singtel, launched its services to a limited number of customers, but it’s Standard Chartered and Fairprice Group’s Trust Bank that has stolen the show so far.

In the last week of December, the bank said it had gone past 400,000 customers. Sea Group’s Maribank, meanwhile, has not officially launched and is currently on an “invite-only” basis.

Ant Group subsidiary Anext Bank as well as Green Link Digital Bank also introduced wholesale offerings primarily targeting cross-border firms.

See also: Sizing up GXS and Trust, Singapore’s newly launched digital banks

The city-state saw several notable mergers and acquisitions last year:

• Funding Societies acquired card enablement platform Cardup in a push toward payments.
• Ant Group bought a majority stake in payment gateway firm 2C2P.
• Alta (formerly Fundnel) purchased blockchain-based securities firm Hg Exchange to support tokenization and digital custody of alternative assets.
• Insurtech firm Bolttech acquired local insurance brokerage AVA Insurance

That said, things weren’t all rosy: JiPay, a firm offering a prepaid card service to domestic workers, wound down last October despite raising over a million US dollars in seed money last year. Among other reasons, relying on interchange fees as its main revenue source was not sustainable, according to the firm’s founder.

Credits