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In 2024, Singapore’s fintech landscape continued its dynamic expansion, reinforcing the country’s position as a leader in payment innovation, digital banking and digital asset management.
The 2024 Singapore Fintech Report, produced by Fintech News Singapore under the support of Visa Direct, offers an analysis of these advancements, exploring the transformation of this burgeoning ecosystem as well as the key trends shaping the sector.
Expanding payment connectivity
This year’s report puts an emphasis on Singapore’s leadership in cross-border payment integration, underscoring the country’s position at the forefront of payment innovation both regionally and internationally.
Source: Singapore Fintech Report 2024, Fintech News Singapore
In 2024, Singapore continued to advance payment connectivity, focusing on linking its real-time payment system, PayNow, with those of key Southeast Asian neighbors. Instant payment linkages, including QR code-based transactions, are now operational between Singapore and Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, enabling seamless and instant payments across borders.
In parallel, Singapore remains an active participants in Project Nexus, an initiative spearheaded by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to enhance global payments network connectivity. Project Nexus aims to improve the speed, cost, transparency and accessibility of cross-border payments by establishing multilateral linkages of national retail payment systems.
Project Nexus is currently in its fourth phase, which focuses on expanding its focus to include new jurisdictions, starting with India. This phase is also marked by the establishment of the Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO), a new entity responsible for managing the Nexus scheme and its rulebook.
Digital banks experience increased uptake but losses continues to mount
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 income in 2023, ranging from a 190% increase for Grab and Singtel’s GXS Bank, to a remarkable 641% growth for Anext Bank, an Ant International subsidiary.
The momentum carried on in 2024, with Trust Bank, a partnership between Standard Chartered and FairPrice Group, claiming that its revenue tripled in H1 2024, while Anext Bank reported in June that its customer base of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) had more than doubled over the prior year.
Source: Singapore Fintech Report 2024, Fintech News Singapore
However while growth numbers are picking up traction losses continue to mount for Singapore’s digital banks — as is typical of digital bank requiring up to 5 years to turn a profit.
In this respect GXS is the loss leader closing the financial year at $152 Million in losses and ANEXT Bank appears to be the closest towards reaching profitability with only $27 Million in losses, this can likely be attributed to lower cost of acquisition for the SME base versus GXS and Trust’s retail playing field.
Several of these banks launched new offerings this year to cater to their expanding customer base and diversify their revenue streams. In late 2024, GXS Bank rolled out Boost Pocket, a new feature within the GXS Savings Account offering higher interest rates on savings, and the GXS Flexicard, a credit card offering. In August 2024, Trust Bank expanded its credit portfolio with Split Purchase and Balance Transfer. Meanwhile, Anext Bank partnered with asset management firm Schroders to offer 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 threefold 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 serves accredited investors, also saw a 36% growth in active trading clients, reflecting robust investor interest. DDEx is a bank-grade licensed platform launched in 2020 that offers a comprehensive range of digital asset services, including trading, custody and security token offerings (STOs).
2024 also saw stablecoin adoption pick up pace, following regulatory updates in late 2023. Paxos, an American blockchain infrastructure and tokenization platform, became in July 2024 the first company to receive full approval from Singapore to issue stablecoin. This was followed shortly thereafter by StraitsX and its XSGD stablecoin.
2024 Singapore Fintech Map
In 2024, the Singapore Fintech Report identified 487 fintech companies serving the Singapore market. This figure marks a significant decline from the 700+ companies in the previous report, reflecting updated methodology to include only companies actively operating in Singapore.
The drop can also be explained by the exit of several fintech companies, particularly in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) and Web 3.0 verticals, amid shifting market conditions and stricter licensing requirements.
Despite these changes, payments – both domestic and international – continued to dominate the Singapore fintech landscape, accounting for 27.2% of all fintech companies operating in the country. The category is followed by regtech (12.6%), wealthtech (11.8%) and blockchain/Web3.0 (8.8%).
2024 Singapore Fintech Map, Source: Singapore Fintech Report 2024, Fintech News Singapore
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