Grab Holdings Ltd and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd plan to roll out a banking app next week, joining tech giants like Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co in taking advantage of the country’s fintech liberalisation.
Called GXS, the bank will start by offering a savings account from Sept 5 and envisions expanding into credit products over time. It will begin by targeting younger users and the gig economy workers that underpin Grab’s car-hailing and meal delivery services, according to a statement.
Grab and telco Singtel aim to compete with tech giants Sea Ltd and Ant, which are building digital banking products for the affluent city-state. But they’re entering a space dominated by major incumbents including DBS Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.
Singapore joins the UK and Hong Kong in opening up to digital-only financial services, seeking to cement its position as a regional centre for fintech and wealth management. Grab, which owns 60% of the venture, has been banking on financial services to help it turn profitable after burning cash in pursuit of growth in ride-hailing and delivery.
The bank will offer daily interest deposits -- which amount to up to 1.58% per annum -- and won’t impose criteria such as minimum deposits, Wong told reporters at a briefing. GSX hopes to compete by tapping Grab’s platform in Singapore, where people who use the app to hail rides or order food can now also access banking services.
“What’s important for us is to look at what we can do across our ecosystem,” Charles Wong, chief executive officer at GXS Bank, told Bloomberg News.
Grab and its telco partner have more than 3 million customers combined, he added. They plan to introduce products for lending, savings, insurance and investments in the near future for small businesses and retail customers, Wong said without specifying a timeframe. The standalone GXS app will be linked to the main Grab platform in Singapore within 60 days, he said.
Wong, a former executive at Citigroup Inc, has more than 20 years of experience in the banking industry. He led its retail banking arm in Singapore and held roles in areas including bancassurance and wealth management before joining Grab, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The Grab-Singtel venture was one of two groups besides Sea to get a full digital bank licence in 2020, allowing it to take deposits and serve both retail and corporate customers. The licence requires S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) in capital as well as local control. That compares with a wholesale digital banking licence for companies like Ant, which requires a capital commitment of S$100 million and can only serve small and midsized firms and other non-retail segments.