UOB battles Sea, Gojek in Indonesia with TMRW digital bank

Many readers would be familiar with the United Overseas Bank (UOB), the Singapore-based bank founded in 1935 that has built a major presence in Southeast Asia, including in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Along with peers DBS and the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (more commonly known as OCBC), UOB is among the top three banks in the region by total assets and profit.

What many probably have not heard of is TMRW (pronounced “tomorrow”), UOB’s mobile-only digital bank that launched in 2019, which operates in Indonesia and Thailand.

TMRW, which has amassed more than 355,000 registered customers in the two and half years since its launch, has an ambitious goal: growing its user base tenfold to 3 million to 5 million customers by 2025. But the company is facing strong competition from other digital banks in Indonesia, many of which launched in the past six months and are backed by technology companies like Gojek and Sea Group.

The TMRW app is different from what people have come to expect of banking platforms – there is no traditional app menu, and TMRW learns from customers’ behaviors to provide them with a personalized experience. The app’s interface seems almost Instagram-like, allowing users to toggle between account and credit card balances as well as to check cashback statuses by scrolling and swiping.

TMRW has also introduced gamification features into its app as well. In the “City of TMRW,” users can expand a virtual city as they grow their savings. According to Kevin Lam, group head of TMRW, these types of features have helped the bank “build a few hundred million Singapore dollars in current savings accounts.”

Despite having strong backing, TMRW has faced its fair share of challenges, including a leadership change just a little over a year into its launch.

In 2020, Dennis Khoo, the former head of TMRW who was described as being “the main driver internally of UOB’s digital transformation,” stepped down from his role.

Khoo was reported to have left the company to join a consortium led by TikTok owner ByteDance. The consortium applied for a digital banking license in Singapore, but its application was ultimately unsuccessful.

In June 2020, Lam, who was also the former country head of UOB Indonesia, replaced Khoo.

Will other players overshadow TMRW?

Unlike Singapore and Malaysia, where regulators award digital bank licenses only to a fraction of applicants, Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) allows digital banks to be established in the archipelago as long as they have a head office in Indonesia and meet the minimum capital requirements below.

Should TMRW be more ambitious?

Ripe for disruption

Incumbents versus tech firms: Who will prevail?