Tyme Group, which operates digital banks in South Africa and the Philippines, has raised US$250 million in its Series D funding round, valuing it at US$1.5 billion. The new capital injection will support Tyme’s expansion into new markets, including Vietnam and Indonesia. In Vietnam, where it only has merchant lending operations, Tyme plans to roll out core transaction banking products later in 2025. In Indonesia, meanwhile, the digital bank also plans to launch merchant cash advance and is looking for a banking license, according to Reuters.

Tencent-backed Airwallex appears to have had another banner year. In a Dec. 10 press release, the B2B payments firm said that its global revenue jumped 73% year-on-year while in the Asia-Pacific Region growth revenue growth was even brisker at 83%.

In early December, BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier told reporters that there is a “possibility” the Philippine central bank would allow four new digital banks in 2025. The regulator highlighted key factors that would be considered in determining the winners, which were mostly boilerplate – a unique value proposition, an innovative business model not yet offered by existing market players, and so on. The capitalization requirements, meanwhile, are modest, at 1 billion Philippine pesos (US$17,300,000).

Singapore-based fintech startup YouTrip is increasingly confident about its business prospects and has even started talking about an IPO – though the company’s leadership will not commit to a date yet. YouTrip is an anomaly. In 2023, it managed to raise US$50 million in a tough period for fintech funding, which supported the expansion of its multicurrency wallet in Malyasia, Singapore and Thailand. It achieved profitability in 2022 and has stayed in the black. In November, YouTrip CEO Caecilia Chu told Nikkei Asia that the company processed US$10 billion in transactions last year and is projected to see a 70% annual revenue increase in 2024.

It was not long ago that Viva Republica CEO Lee Seung-gun praised South Korea’s fintech market and financial regulators. “Korea is a market where fintech companies can build their foundational strength for overseas expansion,” he said in September at Korea Investment Week in Seoul. “There is no country where the government leads financial innovation as much as Korea,” he added. And yet Viva Republica seems to have decided against an IPO on the Korea Stock Exchange (KRX). Instead, it is likely to go public in the United States, according to several Korean media reports.

Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is among the most proactive lenders in Southeast Asia when it comes to digital finance. It recently has started on work on a Thai baht stablecoin project and is setting up a digital bank in Thailand together with South Korea’s Kakao Bank.

South Korea’s K Bank had a strong third quarter during which its net income surged almost 181% annually to 37 billion won (US$26.3 million). Through September, the online lender had accrued profits of 122.4 billion won, up 220% from the first nine months of 2023. K Bank’s customer numbers are rising steadily as well, reaching 12 million by the end of September, thanks to strong demand for high-interest rate deposits, cashback programs and mortgage loans. There was really no bad news in K Bank’s earnings report, but the lender still faces significant challenges due to its close ties with the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit and its general high reliance on digital assets to fuel growth.

For nearly 3 ½ years, the Philippines has been on the gray list of The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which assessed the Southeast Asian country to have inadequate money-laundering and counterterrorism financing controls. Since then, the Philippines has been working to improve those controls so that it can be removed from the list, which is detrimental to the country’s business environment. Its next opportunity to be removed from the list will be in February 2025.