Neobanks like to talk about disruption, but in Hong Kong, they're actually putting their money where their mouth is. Five of the eight virtual banks approved to operate in the former British colony have gone live: ZA Bank, Airstar, WeLab, Fusion Bank and Livi Bank. While none of them has a game-changing value proposition yet, their low fees, digital agility and high deposit rates (at least during a promotional period) are bound to attract customer interest. Their digital acumen is taking on new importance during the pandemic, which recently flared up in Hong Kong.
Grab isn't just Southeast Asia's most valuable startup: It's also the most ambitious. Grab aims to give digital banking pride of place in an ecosystem heretofore reliant on ride hailing and food delivery. The user base is there to make the digibanking gambit work, Grab says, pointing to its millions of passengers, drivers and food-delivery customers.
China's ByteDance is quietly deepening a push into fintech in Asia as the future of its U.S. operations hangs in the balance. ByteDance's popular short-form mobile video platform TikTok has become a major front in the U.S.-China technology war. Now more than ever, ByteDance needs to monetize its services. Fintech could be a way forward for the company, whose US$100 billion valuation makes it the world's most valuable startup in private markets.
Singapore may be the Lion City, but there's an elephant in the room when it comes to digital banking: Incumbents are readier than ever for the challengers. Singapore's Big Three of DBS, OCBC and UOB have been digitizing for years with varied degrees of success. The pandemic gave them an opportunity to fast track the process. After all, when retail branches are closed and everyone stays home, banking digitally becomes a necessity, not a convenience.
The pandemic didn't stop India's fintech investment from surging year-on-year in the first half of 2020. A new KPMG report shows that Indian fintechs raised US$1.7 billion from January to June, more than double the US$726.6 million during the same period a year ago. There were 70 deals in total.
The Taiwanese government recently announced its intention to transform Taiwan into a regional finance hub. Wealth management is an area of focus. One would think that the government would see a chance to simultaneously bolster fintech development in Taiwan, which has lagged compared to the other Asian tiger economies: Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. Yet the Taiwan government remains wary of disruption in the financial sector. As demonstrated in the Financial Supervisory Commission's (FSC) new three-year fintech roadmap, Taiwan remains committed to a cautious, prescriptive approach to fintech that prioritizes strengthening the digital capabilities of incumbents.
Gaming firm Razer is about as far from a bank as you can get. While it has a fintech arm, Razer's bread and butter lies in gaming hardware, software and services. Fintech, which refers primarily to payments in Razer's case, is a means for gamers to make in-game purchases. Razer sees a big opportunity though: Turn its many millennial gamers into banking customers. After all, they're already spending money digitally in the Razer ecosystem.
In addition to the digital full bank (DFB) license it has applied for in Singapore, Razer is also aiming to develop a larger international digital finance network. A logical first step would be to apply for a digital bank license in neighboring Malaysia, where Razer already has a strong presence. Malaysia is the only market besides Singapore where Razer's e-wallet Razer Pay is in wide use. Malaysia also recently signaled its willingness to apply more non-financial firms to apply for digital bank licenses.
Capital requirements for a Malaysia digital bank license are fairly stringent, with an absolute minimum of RM 100 million (US$23.7 million) necessary during an initial three to five-year period and later RM 300 million. As a listed company, Razer, however, could easily meet them. It has about US$500 million in cash on hand, according to an August statement.
Razer is also reportedly considering expanding its digital finance business to other Southeast Asian markets, India and Latin America.
Razer would not be the first gaming giant to become a digital banking juggernaut. Tencent has made that transformation, although it wasn't a straight shot from gaming to fintech. The WeChat messaging app played a paramount role.
Tencent-invested Sea is also trying to make the jump from gaming to banking, but unlike Razer, Sea has a large e-commerce business. That makes Sea's bid to support SMEs more convincing than if it were a gaming company alone. Sea already has many small businesses in its ecosystem, while Razer has primarily potential retail banking customers.
Sea and Razer have one thing in common though: Both are ascendant but still loss-making. Hong Kong-listed Razer posted a net loss of US$17.7 million ($24.2 million) from January to June, a 64% improvement over the US$47.7 million it lost a year earlier. Revenue rose 25% annually to US$447.5 million on the back of strong demand for its gaming products.
Razer's fintech business recorded US$1.8 billion in total payment volume in the first half of the year, up 114.3% year-on-year. The business grew briskly thanks to rapid customer acquisition, both on the merchant and consumer sides - rising digital entertainment consumption amid the pandemic helped drive growth in the latter market segment.
"The fundamentals of our business remain as solid as ever," Min-Liang Tan, co-founder and CEO of Razer, said in a statement. That, "coupled with our strong operating cost discipline and our strong cash position of over US$500 million, put us in good stead, even during times of challenging global economic conditions."
After a rocky 2019, South Korea's Toss has performed strongly thus far in 2020. Despite the pandemic, Toss broke even for the first time in April. In late August Toss's parent company Viva Republica announced it had raised US$173 million, bringing its total war chest to US$560 million and its valuation to US$2.6 billion. Investors in the fundraising round include Aspex Management, Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund, Altos Ventures, Goodwater Capital, and Greyhound Capital. Toss will use the cash to support the next stage of its expansion.
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a new normal that is affecting the livelihoods of billions of consumers and businesses globally. Singapore is no exception as the fintech industry faces unprecedented challenges. However, the Singapore government has been very supportive of the industry and there are a number of public and private initiatives that have been launched to help the industry along. As part of Kapronasia's work to help companies through this time, please do not hesitate to reach out for a conversation of how we might be able to help your business weather this time. As a Singapore-based firm, we are able to work through many of the programs that are listed below which provides clients with the same Kapronasia quality at often a much lower cost through grants and incentives.
Summary of Programs
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) threw FinTechs a lifeline in April following a survey of Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) members which found that 47.8% of respondents felt that Covid-19 has had a significant impact on their business.
As part of the S$125 million “Covid-19 FinTech Care Package,” funded by the Financial Sector Development Fund, the MAS announced a new Digital Acceleration Grant (DAG) under the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) scheme. The DAG seeks to help smaller financial institutions (FIs) and FinTech firms in adopting, customizing, or collaborating on digitalization projects to streamline processes and deepen capabilities.
The DAG scheme consists of two tracks: The Institution Project track and the Industry Pilot track.
The Institution Project track supports the adoption of digital solutions to improve operational resilience, enhance productivity, manage risks more effectively and/or serve customers better. Eligible FIs and FinTechs are entitled to 80% of qualifying expenses up to a cap of S$120,000 per entity over the duration of the scheme.
The Industry Pilot track supports collaborations among at least three smaller Singapore-based FIs to customize digital solutions for implementation within their institutions, by co-funding 80% of qualifying expenses, capped at S$100,000 per participating FI per project.
The MAS’ Covid-19 FinTech Care Package consists of three main components. The DAG scheme falls under “strengthening digitalization and operational resilience.” The other two main components of the MAS support package are:
Supporting workforce training and manpower costs: Under this component of the package, the MAS will launch a new Training Allowance Grant (TAG) to encourage FIs and FinTech firms to train and deepen the capabilities of their employees. Self-sponsored individuals and employees at FIs and FinTechs can apply to receive a training allowance and subsidized course fees, while FIs are also eligible to receive a salary grant under the Finance Associate Management Scheme (FAMS).
Enhancing FinTech firms’ access to digital platforms and tools: Under this component of the package, the MAS will provide all Singapore-based FinTech firms six months’ free access to the API Exchange (APIX), an online global marketplace and sandbox for collaboration and sales. The MAS will also work with the SFA to set up a new digital self-assessment framework for MAS’ Outsourcing and Technology Risk Management (TRM) Guidelines hosted on APIX. Completing the self-assessment will help FinTech firms provide a first-level assurance to FIs about the quality of their solutions.
MAS-SFA-AMTD FinTech Solidarity Grant
In a separate initiative introduced in May, The MAS, SFA, and AMTD established a S$6 million MAS-SFA-AMTD FinTech Solidarity Grant to support Singapore-based FinTech companies amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The grant will help FinTechs manage their cashflow better, support them in generating new businesses, and provide greater support for FinTechs to pursue growth strategies.
The grant is made up for two parts:
The Business Sustenance Grant seeks to tide over Singapore-based FinTechs during this Covid-19 period and save jobs. It offers both wage and rental support.
The Business Growth Grant aims to foster the continued growth of Singapore-based FinTech companies and help these companies offset their POC costs. The grant offers 70% of qualifying costs related to the POC on APIX, as well as 100% internship funding for interns involved in the development and implementation of the POCs.
Consumer internet company Sea is in many ways the ideal candidate for a Singapore digital full bank license. It has a trio of digital services: the gaming arm Garena, the e-commerce platform Shopee and SeaMoney, which focuses on digital financial services. All that's missing is a digital bank license that would allow NYSE-listed Sea to offer full-fledged banking services to the many users it has across those three core businesses.
China's peer-to-peer lending crackdown has been a lesson in risk management with Chinese characteristics. While SOE juggernauts in China may be too big to fail, the P2P lending sector was too big to prevail. Massive scams on the largely unregulated platforms defrauded retail investors of their life savings, threatening social stability. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission reckons that P2P lenders still owe depositors about RMB 800 billion (US$115 billion). There are just 29 P2P lenders left in China today, compared to 6,000 when the crackdown began in 2015.
Ride-hailing Grab is pushing deeper into digital banking, launching an auto investment service similar to Ant Group's Yu'e Bao. In Grab's case, the AutoInvest service allows users to invest - the minimum is set at just S$1 - while using the company's ecosystem. Fullerton Fund Management and UOB's fixed income funds are responsible for the investments. They expect annual returns of 1.8%, similar to what banks in Singapore offer. At the same time, Grab plans to offer third-party consumer loans from licensed bank partners, with which the ride-hailing giant will integrate APIs.
Hong Kong's eight virtual banks largely represent vested banking and tech interests in the city. Most of the newcomers are actually oldcomers if you stop to think about how well established they are outside of Hong Kong's nascent digital banking segment. WeLab, a Hong Kong-based fintech startup, is the exception. Founded in 2013 by ex-Citibank executive Simon Loong and two other partners, the company has steadily grown over the past seven years, and says it now has 40 million customers and disbursed more than HK$50 billion in loans in Hong Kong, mainland China and Indonesia. WeLab's Hong Kong virtual bank went live in July.
It's good to be Kakao Bank. Kakao was already South Korea's most successful neobank story before it reported record earnings in the second quarter of 26.8 billion won ($22.6 million), a nearly 900% year-on-year increase from 3.0 billion won a year earlier. Kakao's net profit for the first half of the year reached 45.3 billion won, a more than fourfold increase from 9.6 billion in the first half of 2019. That Kakao achieved this exponential growth amid the pandemic and a weak overall South Korean economy is particularly impressive.
According to Kakao, its profits surged on the back of rising net interest income and commissions from the sale of financial products. "We were able to make more profit from increased revenues from lending and fees from partnering with credit card companies and brokerages," the company said in a statement published by South Korean media.
The picture for Kakao Bank's lending business is fairly rosy. Its outstanding loan balance grew to 17.68 trillion won in the second quarter, up from 14.88 trillion won a year earlier. Financial inclusion is one name of the game as well: Kakao said it provided 660 billion won in mid-rate loans to consumers with mid- to low-level credit scores from January to June and plans to disburse a total of 1 trillion won of such loans in 2020.
Like many successful fintechs, Kakao Bank is steadily developing partnerships with key incumbents. It has four local credit card partners in South Korea, including Shinhan Card and Samsung Card. From April to July, Kakao issued 260,000 credit cards, according to The Korea Herald.
Kakao Bank also has a burgeoning equities trading business. As of late June, it had more than 2.18 million such accounts, up from 1.14 million in December 2019. Its partners among incumbents include Korea Investment & Securities, NH Investment Securities and KB Securities.
At the same time, Kakao Bank benefits from the stickiness of the Kakao ecosystem, which is a super app in all but name. Kakao Bank already has 11 million monthly active users, more than half who are under age 50. And there are many more potential customers where those came from: The dominant KakaoTalk messaging app has almost 45 million monthly users, about 87% of South Korea's population.
Thanks to its strong brand name and ecosystem, Kakao Bank managed to reach profitability in just two years from its establishment in 2017. Further buoying its growth was when its parent company Kakao Corp became the virtual bank's majority shareholder, the first instance in Korea of a non-financial firm holding a majority stake in a bank. That change allowed Kakao Bank to issue new shares worth 500 billion won and increase its paid-in capital to 1.8 trillion won.
When it comes to Asian financial centers, Hong Kong and Singapore are no longer the only games in town. Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney have recently signaled intent to bolster their financial sectors and take on a larger regional role. Yet right on Hong Kong's doorstep there is another potential contender: Taiwan. In recent weeks, Taiwan's government has highlighted its plan to develop a more globally oriented financial sector. That will be easier said than done. Taiwan takes a fundamentally conservative approach to finance that will not be easily changed.
Before covid-19, the sky seemed to be the limit for Australia's virtual banks. They were rapidly accruing users, in some cases surpassing their own forecasts. Venture capital kept flowing into their coffers. The pandemic slammed the brakes on the neobanks' ascendancy. Demand in Australia remains for innovative digital banking services - if the neobanks can survive the downturn. Since the neobanks are startups built for fast growth, rather than steely resilience, they face a long road ahead.
The pandemic has disrupted Malaysia's digital banking plans, but the ensuing delay may be a boon for interested firms that now have more time to select partners. The original contenders for up to five digital bank licenses include ride-hailing giant Grab, telecoms juggernaut Axiata Group Bhd (owner of e-wallet Boost) and the banks CIMB, Affin Hong Leong, AMMB Holdings and Standard Chartered Bank. Those banks are now reportedly less interested in obtaining a license, while several non-financial firms may throw their hat into the ring: gaming giant Razer, conglomerate Sunway Group, telecoms company Green Packet. Hong Kong investment bank AMTD may also bid for a license.
Southeast Asia's most valuable tech startup is coming down to earth at last, despite maintaining a sky-high valuation of more than US$14 billion. Faced with the pandemic-induced downturn, Singapore-based Grab is scaling back its ambitions and remarkably, cutting costs. That involves eliminating some superfluous business units and trimming about 5% of its workforce. Grab's professed goal is to rejig its operations to focus on three core businesses: ride-hailing, food delivery and digital banking. Its unstated goal is to get its finances in order so that its bid for a Singapore digital full back license is successful.
Australia launched its open banking regime on July 1, ushering in an era of increased competition and customer choice. The regime allows a customer of any of Australia's Big Four banks - National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Westpac - to ask that their account and card data be sent to a third party accredited by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In November, mortgages and personal loan data will be introduced, while smaller banks will join in 2021.
Cambodia's digital banking initiatives are increasingly on the money. The Kingdom has focused on fast-tracking digital banking to boost financial inclusion and develop the broader banking sector, which only serves a limited portion of the population. Just 22% of Cambodia's population of 16.2 million is banked. The good news is that fintech is bringing more Cambodians into the formal financial system. In 2019, active digital wallets in Cambodia jumped 64% to 5.22 million, according to a June report by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC).
Taiwan's virtual banks were supposed to go live this summer but the coronavirus pandemic has delayed the launch date. The three neobanks, which include consortia led by Line Financial, Chunghwa Telecom and Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, will likely launch later in the year, according to Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC). The three neobanks have yet to start one-month operation simulation tests, a pilot period required by the FSC to ensure the banks are in shipshape.
The Singapore digital banking race is accelerating. The Monetary Authority of Singapaore (MAS) has winnowed down the applicant field from 21 to 14. While the MAS did not say which contenders failed to make the cut, observers close to the matter say that the consortia headed by Grab/Singtel, Sea, Razer and MatchMove have all advanced to the next round. Those four applicants are all bidding for a coveted digital full bank (DFB) license, which permits holders to serve both retail and non-retail customers. The MAS plans to issue a maximum of two DFB licenses.
Some things just weren't meant to be, like peer-to-peer lending in China. What began as a legitimate way to support financial inclusion through internet finance morphed into a scam-ridden zombie industry. Beijing has moved to shut down the majority of P2P lenders that haven't imploded on their own. The industry is going the way of crypto, another member of the fintech family that ran afoul of China's regulators. In a recent Sina Finance commentary, former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan gave a scathing criticism of P2P lending, likening it to a digital version of traditional pyramid schemes he says have long existed in rural China.
The pandemic-induced economic downturn could be a catalyst for needed financial reform in China, where foreign firms have struggled to gain market share. The Chinese economy contracted in the first quarter and will likely grow just 1.2% for the year, according to the IMF. A new UN report estimates that FDI could drop 40% this year, falling below US$1 trillion for the first time since 2005. At the same time, China's trade surplus is narrowing. Capital outflows are rising despite stringent controls, reaching US$50 billion in March and April, according to Nikkei Asian Review. Capital inflows from foreign investors in the financial sector could help stabilize the renminbi.
Hong Kong's virtual banks will not easily unseat entrenched incumbents, but the newcomers are already succeeding in one respect: They are forcing traditional banks to up their digital game. This trend started well before the coronavirus pandemic, but has accelerated as concerns about the virus impede customer visits to physical branches. The virus is acting as a catalyst for digital transformation among Hong Kong's incumbent banks just as the virtual banks are launching.
South Korea's K bank, one of three licensed virtual banks in the country, is planning to reopen in July if it can secure additional capital. K bank suspended most of its services about a year ago amid fundraising travails. It would be an impressive feat for the bank to resolve those capital issues amid the pandemic-induced downturn. South Korea entered a technical recession in the second quarter with GDP expected to contract 2% compared to the January-March period, according to the Bank of Korea.
Indonesia's Gojek is one of Asia's most ambitious unicorns. It leads the ride-hailing and food-delivery markets in Indonesia, and is steadily increasing its digital banking services. In June, it filed trademarks for new business entities that could pave the way for expansion into corporate services, live-video conferencing and electronics repair. Yet the company remains unprofitable eight years after its founding. Gojek needs to boost the stickiness of its app and speed up monetization. That's why it's a wise move for the company to partner with Facebook and PayPal, which took took respective 2.4% and 0.6% stakes in Gojek's fintech arm GoPay, a regulatory filing shows. The U.S. tech giants' investments were part of a fundraising round that reportedly values at Gojek at more than US$10 billion.
In May the European Commission named Cambodia as one of 12 nations at a high risk for money laundering and terrorism financing. The EC's move is a setback for Cambodia, which aims to attract foreign investment and develop a thriving digital economy. The kingdom will likely be added to a list that includes countries such as North Korea Iran, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan. The EC said that it sought to better align with the international money-laundering watchdog FATF, which put Cambodia on its gray list in February 2019 for having "significant deficiencies" in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime.
Judo Bank has become the first of Australia's neobanks to reach a AU$1 billion valuation and just the second so-called fintech "unicorn" in the country after Tencent-backed Airwallex. Investors shrugged off the coronavirus pandemic and economic doldrums - Australia is headed for its first recession since 1991- and handed Judo an additional AU$230 million in May. Melbourne-based Judo has now raised a total of AU$770 million in equity over three fundraising rounds. Among Judo's existing investors: the Abu Dhabi Capital Group, Bain Capital Credit, Ironbridge, Myer Family Investments, OPTrust, SPF Investment Management, and Tikehau Capital.
On May 17, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Shanghai branch announced the launch of the Shanghai Fintech Innovation Regulatory Trial, which follows the trial in Beijing last December. In addition, the Shanghai Fintech Industry Alliance (SFIA) was established to encourage innovative fintech programs in the Yangtze River Delta region.
Regulatory sandboxes provide fintech firms a controlled and supervised environment to test innovative products, services, or business models. Fintech innovation is an important driver of growth in the financial industry, especially in China. However, potential risks need to be addressed, notably customer security and data protection. At the same time, regulatory uncertainty could dissuade investors from investing in a company. For their part, meanwhile, regulators need to develop a deep understanding of innovative applications so that they are able to effectively regulate new business models and technologies. Thus, regulators use a regulatory sandbox to achieve a balance between technological innovation and risk prevention, so as to implement more universal policies.
Project qualification and regulator duties
In mid-January, the PBOC announced the first batch of trial applications, including the Internet of Things, APIs, smart tokens and trusted execution environment. Six projects have been approved to join in the trial scheme in Beijing, including API open banking (CITIC aiBank), supply chain finance based on IoT (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China), automatic loans for micro-credit products (Agricultural Bank of China), mobile POS (China UnionPay, Xiaomi and JD digits), Zhiling products managing smart token (CITIC Bank, UnionPay, Duxiaoman payment and Ctrip) and instant online loan (Bank of Ningbo).
In late April, the PBOC extended the second batch of sandbox experimental cities to Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Suzhou, as well as the Xiong’an New Area, a much-anticipated new economic zone. The Shanghai trial will guide licensed financial institutions and technology companies to join in the scheme, with the aim to protect consumers’ rights and assist SMEs with maintaining their operations during the COVID-19 crisis. The Shanghai financial regulator said that it would apply “soft regulatory methods” such as information disclosure, product notice, and social supervision. It will also support the local sandbox to connect with other sandboxes around the world.
Although there are similar products widely available on the market, such as instant internet loans issued by banks or internet loan providers, putting a project into the sandbox can allow it to grow freely without falling afoul of existing regulations, supporting the creation of new business models and helping familiarize regulators with them.. However, if a project does not progress fast enough in the sandbox, it may stand little chance of succeeding in the real market.
The Sandbox experience in the UK and ASEAN
The British government first developed the concept of the "regulatory sandbox." The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched its innovation program in 2014 and has supported more than 700 firms to test their innovation with real customers in the live market under controlled conditions. The access to regulatory expertise through the sandbox has reduced the time-to-market for firms and potentially lowered related costs. According to the FCA, 90% of the firms in the first cohort have continued towards a wider market launch. And at least 40% of firms that completed testing in cohort 1 received investment during or following their sandbox test.
Across ASEAN, regulatory sandboxes are also playing their role in managing risk in fintech innovation. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched its fintech sandbox in 2016 to encourage more fintech experimentation and innovation. One company, Inzsure Pte Ltd, was forbidden to continue serving as an insurance broker after the sandbox test.
The Bank of Thailand launched a regulatory sandbox in early 2017 and encouraged innovative companies to develop services and products. In the Thai model, a startup’s innovations stay in the sandbox for a fixed period of 6 to 12 months. Successful businesses after this period can apply for operating licenses.
Sandboxes in Zhejiang and the Greater Bay Area
Hangzhou is to release its Fintech Sandbox rules this week. The detailed establishment plan will be set by Hangzhou Central Sub-branch of PBC, Zhejiang Bureau of CBIRC, Financial Bureau of Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Finance.
Meanwhile, in order to accelerate financial and trade integration of the “Greater Bay Area”, the PBOC announced the release of the “Opinions Concerning Financial Support for the Establishment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area” on May 14. The PBOC produced the Opinions in collaboration with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). The options include plans to promote a cross-border regulatory sandbox.
These trial projects form part of China’s Fintech Development Plan (2019-2021). According to internet bank XWBank (XinWang Bank), the fintech regulatory trials will test the best regulatory methods and provide corresponding space and system guarantees for fintech innovations based on the “regulatory sandbox” innovative regulation model.
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At first blush, UBS's bid for a digital bank license in China looks rather ambitious. Beijing doesn't give them out too often. In fact, no foreign lender in China has one. There are just four licensed digital banks in China: Ant Financial's MYBank, Tencent's WeBank, Baidu's AiBank and China Citic Bank. Retail banking has long been the holy grail just out of reach for foreign banks in China. Yet UBS sees a chance to develop a digital-first wealth management business in the country as Beijing prepares legislation that could open up the market to more foreign competition.
Singapore's Grab reckons it can become the first loss-making ride-hailing firm to reinvent itself as a viable digital bank. So confident is Grab in its fintech endeavor that it has applied for a digital full bank license in Singapore with telecoms giant Singtel. If Grab succeeds as a digital bank, it will be an outlier. China's Didi launched a fintech unit in early 2019, but has yet to make any progress in digital banking. Uber too thinks fintech can help it monetize and created a dedicated division about a year ago. Like Didi's, it has gone nowhere yet. And of course, there's Gojek, an Indonesia-based variant of Grab. It too is dabbling in digital banking.
The coronavirus pandemic is a day of reckoning for overvalued, overhyped and overextended fintechs. With a "go big or go home" ethos, these firms are finding that amid the virus-induced downturn they may have nowhere to go. Not so for South Korea's Viva Republica, the country's only fintech unicorn, which has been steadily building a business in its home market for nearly a decade. In fact, Viva Republica's mobile banking platform Toss just broke even in April for the first time in its five-year history. That's impressive given that the South Korean economy is in recession. South Korea's GDP contracted contracted 1.4% year-on-year in the first quarter, its worst performance since the 2008-09 global financial crisis.
Myanmar is gradually opening its banking sector to foreign investment in a bid to boost the economy. International lenders see strong potential in the Southeast Asian nation's underdeveloped financial industry. Myanmar has been one of the region's fastest growing economies in recent years. Thus far, it has not been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic either. In April, the Central Bank of Myanmar approved seven Asian banks to enter the country: Taiwan's Cathay United Bank and Mega International Commercial Bank, South Korea's Industrial Bank of Korea, KB Kookmin Bank and Korea Development Bank, Bank of China Hong Kong and Siam Commercial Bank.