Singapore's fintechs have largely shifted from serving consumers to offering digital services to banks
, Singapore’s biggest bank, was watching with growing alarm. Together with his bank’s chairman, Peter Seah, he arranged a meeting with Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, and Joseph Tsai, then its chief financial officer. “I walked away scared out of my wits that they will change our industry forever,” says Mr Gupta.
Acquiring a digibank customer via online promotions and ads costs around $8-10 a go, far less than the $60-70 it takes to acquire a customer offline. And without branches, running accounts is very cheap. Even so, it will take time for digibank to become profitable. “Because the cost is not huge you think you’ll acquire the customers and figure out what to do with them,” says Mr Gupta.
The focus on young people simplifies things, explains Dennis Khoo, who is leading the expansion, since they are already digitally minded and their financial needs are usually straightforward: payments, credit cards and savings. He draws a distinction between “digital banking”—offering services through internet and mobile, alongside other channels, such as branches and phone—and a “digital bank”, like, which is available only through mobile phones.
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