Grab, Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing giant and Singtel recently announced that its consortium has been selected to set up Singapore’s full digital bank.
The opportunity to build a digital bank comes during a critical time when more people and businesses are going online, along with research showing that 40% of Singapore residents are underbanked.
The consortium will focus on serving consumers and small businesses, starting with time-starved young PMETs, gig workers with flexible incomes, and micro-SMEs who face limited access to financing. Grab and Singtel will enable these underserved groups to easily access transparent financial services that are embedded in their everyday activities, helping them achieve a better quality of life.
Grab and Singtel’s priority is to create the most seamless and secure digital banking experience in Singapore. To grow and build a robust banking infrastructure, the consortium will be looking to fill around 200 roles by end 2021, in the areas of product, data, technology, risk, finance and compliance.
Anthony Tan, Group CEO & Co-Founder of Grab
With Grab and Singtel’s combined experience in meeting the everyday needs of Singaporeans, as well as our deep tech expertise and data-driven insights, the digital bank will further our goal to empower more people to gain better control of their money and achieve better economic outcomes for themselves, their businesses and families.
Yuen Kuan Moon, Singtel’s Group CEO-designate
With Singtel and Grab’s combined digital expertise and deep customer knowledge, we have the assets and the synergies to make banking more accessible and intuitive, to deliver much-needed product simplicity, speed and affordability to consumers and enterprises.
