Despite rapid volume expansion in payments and unsecured lending, profitability remains elusive as incumbents continue to dominate.

Transaction Volume Growth and Key Drivers

Singapore’s digital banks recorded transaction volume growth exceeding 40% year-on-year in 2024 across payments and unsecured lending, driven by deep integration into parent-company ecosystems and a sharp focus on underserved segments. The three licensed digital retail banks—GXS Bank, MariBank, and Trust Bank—leveraged their respective Grab-Singtel, Sea-Shopee, and NTUC ecosystems to embed financial services into high-frequency consumer and merchant transactions. GXS Bank reported accelerated growth in 2024, noting its enhanced suite of banking services—including savings accounts, FlexiLoans, and credit products—saw strong adoption among customers already transacting on Grab and Singtel platforms (Source: GXS Bank press release). MariBank similarly benefited from cross-selling within Sea’s Shopee marketplace, while Trust Bank expanded through NTUC’s membership base.

The broader payments infrastructure in Singapore continued to scale. The Fast And Secure Transfers (FAST) payment system processed more than 500 million transactions in 2024, a 31% year-on-year increase, according to the Singapore Fintech Association (Source: Business Times). Approximately 98% of Singaporean adults now use digital wallets, providing a deep base for digital banks to grow transaction volumes further. The ecosystem approach—offering bundled solutions such as Grab-linked savings accounts and Singtel data plans—enables these banks to achieve customer acquisition costs significantly lower than traditional branch-based models while maintaining higher engagement rates.

Profitability and Loss Trends

Despite the rapid expansion in transaction volumes and user bases, all three digital banks remain unprofitable, though aggregate losses are narrowing. GXS Bank incurred a net loss of S$145.4 million in FY2024, narrowing from S$152.1 million in FY2023 (Source: The Straits Times). Revenue grew approximately S$14.3 million during the year, but credit provisioning and technology infrastructure costs continue to weigh on the bottom line (Source: LinkedIn post). MariBank posted a net loss of S$51.3 million in FY2024, an improvement of 1.7% from S$52.2 million in FY2023 (Source: The Straits Times). Trust Bank reported improved earnings in FY2024, though full-year loss figures were not separately disclosed (Source: The Straits Times).

Net Loss (S$ million) (S$M)Source: Orionmano Industries

The narrowing loss trajectory indicates improving unit economics as customer lifetimes lengthen and transaction volumes compound. However, the path to breakeven remains extended. GXS Bank’s S$145.4 million loss, even after improvement, represents a large gap relative to its revenue base. Industry observers note that digital banks face the classic fintech dilemma: balancing investment in customer acquisition and product expansion against the need to demonstrate a credible path to profitability to regulators and shareholders.

Competitive Landscape and Asset Share

For all their growth momentum, Singapore’s three digital retail banks collectively hold under 1.5% of total banking assets in the city-state. The three incumbents—DBS, UOB, and OCBC—retain the vast majority of customer deposits, loan books, and banking assets (Source: LinkedIn post). DBS alone manages total assets exceeding S$740 billion, a figure that dwarfs the combined balance sheets of the digital challengers.

The digital banks are, however, carving out meaningful positions in specific niches. Trust Bank has become the fourth-largest retail bank by customer numbers, with approximately one million customers on its books as of February 2024 (Source: The Straits Times). GXS Bank targets underserved segments: four in five of its customers are classified as underserved, including gig economy workers, self-employed entrepreneurs, and thin-file borrowers—25% of GXS FlexiLoan customers had no or thin credit bureau records when applying (Source: GXS Bank press release). MariBank serves a similar demographic via the Shopee merchant ecosystem.

Both GXS and MariBank have expanded into SME lending, a segment long dominated by the incumbents. MariBank views business banking as a "natural extension" of its Shopee ecosystem, offering working capital and cash flow products to merchants (Source: The Straits Times). In April 2025, GXS acquired Validus Capital, a digital lending platform for SMEs, rebranding it as GXS Capital to bolster its small-business capabilities (Source: The Straits Times). This pivot into SME lending leverages the digital banks’ data advantages—transaction histories from parent platforms—to underwrite risk more precisely than traditional credit scoring allows.

Outlook

Digital banks are expected to scale further through deeper ecosystem integration and expansion into SME lending, but achieving profitability remains a mid-term challenge. The growth strategies—embedding banking into super apps, targeting thin-file consumers, and lending to micro-businesses—require sustained investment in technology, credit risk modelling, and regulatory compliance. Rising regulatory costs, including capital adequacy requirements and anti-money laundering obligations, will further pressure margins. Meanwhile, incumbents are not standing still; DBS, UOB, and OCBC continue to invest heavily in their own digital capabilities and enjoy the advantages of scale, brand trust, and diversified revenue streams. The question for digital banks is no longer whether they can grow, but whether they can grow profitably before investor patience—or regulatory forbearance—runs out.