In 2024, Singapore’s fintech landscape continued its dynamic expansion, strengthening the country’s position as a leader in payments innovation, digital banking and digital asset management.
THE Singapore Fintech Report 2024produced by Fintech News Singapore with support from Visa Direct, offers analysis of these advances, exploring the transformation of this growing ecosystem as well as the key trends shaping the sector.
Expanding Payments Connectivity
This year’s report highlights Singapore’s leadership in cross-border payments integration, highlighting the country’s position at the forefront of payments innovation, both regionally and internationally .
In 2024, Singapore continued to advance payments connectivity, focusing on linking its real-time payments system, PayNow, with those of its major Southeast Asian neighbors. Instant payment links, including QR code-based transactions, are now operational between Singapore and Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, enabling seamless and instant cross-border payments.
At the same time, Singapore continues to actively participate in Nexus Projectan initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to improve the connectivity of global payment networks. The Nexus Project aims to improve the speed, cost, transparency and accessibility of cross-border payments by establishing multilateral links between national retail payment systems.
Nexus Project East currently in its fourth phase, which aims to expand its scope to include new jurisdictions, starting with India. This phase is also marked by the creation of the Nexus Scheme Organization (NSO), a new entity responsible for managing the Nexus system and its regulations.
Digital Banks Growing in Popularity, But Losses Continue to Mount
The year 2024 also saw accelerated growth in digital banking, driven by increased adoption and strong financial performance among Singapore’s five licensed players. All of these digital banks recorded an increase in revenue in 2023, ranging from a 190% increase for Grab and Singtel’s GXS Bank, to a remarkable 641% growth for Ant International subsidiary Anext Bank.
The momentum continued in 2024, with Trust Bank, a partnership between Standard Chartered and FairPrice Group, claims that its turnover tripled in the first half of 2024, while Anext Bank reported by June, its micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) customer base had more than doubled from the previous year.
However, as growth figures accelerate, losses continue to mount for Singapore’s digital banks, as is the case for digital banks that require up to 5 years to turn a profit.
In this regard, GXS is the loss leader which closes the financial year with $152 million in losses and ANEXT Bank appears to be the bank closest to profitability with only $27 million in losses. This can likely be attributed to a lower acquisition cost for the SMB base compared to GXS Playground and Trust for retail.
Several of these banks have launched new offers this year to meet their growing customer base and diversify their sources of income. At the end of 2024, GXS Bank deployed Boost pocketa new feature of the GXS Savings Account offering higher interest rates on savings, and the GXS Flexicard, a credit card offering. In August 2024, Trust Bank extended its credit portfolio with split purchase and balance transfer. Meanwhile, Anext Bank in partnership with asset management company Schroders to provide investment fund options to MSMEs.
Growing institutional interest in digital assets
The adoption of digital assets and tokenization continued to rise in 2024, fueled by increased institutional interest and regulatory support.
DBS’s digital assets arm, DDEx, reported a three-fold increase in the value of digital assets traded on its platform in the first five months of 2024, compared to the same period last year. The platform, which is aimed at qualified investors, also saw 36% growth in the number of active trading clients, reflecting strong investor interest. DDEx is a bank-licensed platform launched in 2020 that offers a full range of digital asset services, including trading, custody, and security token (STO) offerings.
2024 also saw stablecoin adoption accelerate, following regulatory updates in late 2023. Paxos, a US-based blockchain infrastructure and tokenization platform, in July 2024 became the first company to receive full approval from Singapore to issue stablecoin. This was followed shortly after by StraitsX and its stablecoin XSGD.
Singapore Fintech Map 2024
In 2024, the Singapore Fintech Report identified 487 fintech companies serving the Singapore market. This figure marks a significant decline from the more than 700 companies in the previous report, reflecting the updated methodology to only include companies actively operating in Singapore.
This decline may also be explained by the exit of several fintech companies, particularly in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) and Web 3.0 verticals, amid changing market conditions and licensing requirements. more strict.
Despite these changes, payments – domestic and international – have continued to dominate Singapore’s fintech landscape, accounting for 27.2% of all fintech companies operating in the country. The category is followed by regtech (12.6%), tech wealth (11.8%) and blockchain/Web3.0 (8.8%).
