Ecosystem integration, super-apps, gamification and world-beating products in savings and investing are driving Asian digital banking forward. The best digital banks here have much to teach each other – and the rest of the sector.
The banking environment in Asia is more diverse than anywhere else in the world, making generalisations difficult. Nevertheless, there are some themes that are more widespread in digital banking in Asia than in any other part of the world, even if they remain absent from some key Asian countries.
One widespread theme is the way that digital banks in Asia are often developing alongside or have grown out of wider consumer ecosystems, brands and platforms in areas such as shopping, e-commerce and payments, and from super-apps based on social media, messaging, deliveries or ride-hailing services. Related to that, digital banks in some Asian countries have developed a relatively strong gamification element to their product offering, sometimes influenced by specific cultural or regulatory factors.
Another common theme in Asia ex-Japan is relatively high economic growth and consequent wealth creation. That makes it particularly important for digital banks to develop enticing savings products and accessible forms of wealth management within their apps – partly to serve as a stepping stone to private banking services.
This report assesses digital banks across Asia – in addition to a special focus on Southeast Asia – based on their successes and capabilities across:
1. Paths to success
How are incumbent banks’ digital transformations progressing in Asia? Where can neobanks still find a niche in terms of target markets and product differentiation? Where are incumbents improving their digital products?
2. Ecosystems and digital partnerships
Why have Asian digital banks put so much importance in partnerships with established consumer platforms? What will be the role of that approach among the next wave of newly licensed banks? Can incumbent banks build independent consumer ecosystems?
3. Customer-experience excellence
How are national digital identity programmes changing the onboarding process? What impact is AI having on credit origination? How are Asian banks making even more of their services available digitally? How are they innovating to protect customers?
4. Financial inclusion and well-being
What impact is digital banking having on financial inclusion? What is the app design in agent banking? How can banks build digital banking products to appeal to those entering the system? What are the hottest ideas in financial health and well-being?
Even if some Asian neobanks are at an early stage of their development due to prior licensing restrictions, they are making important contributions on all these topics. Incumbents are also developing new customers and income streams through digital channels.
Traditionally, banks invested heavily in ensuring availability of digital services and security. As we shift towards becoming more customer-centric, focus has increased on building a seamless experience and leveraging data
Anjani Rathor, chief digital officer, HDFC Bank
But it is no longer enough to have a wide branch network and an app for the digitally savvy. As digital channels level the playing field, retail banking risks becoming an interchangeable commodity, competing merely on price. The only way to offer a key differentiated product is to invest and partner well, to prioritise trust in your brand and to innovate in the product and customer experience.
This report shows how banks are balancing these objectives and which are coming out on top.
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The MarketMap methodology
This report is based on Euromoney’s assessment of more than 300 retail banks globally as part of its annual research cycle. It combines qualitative insights from interviews with senior executives – CEOs and other C-suite executives, heads of retail banking and digital banking, heads of strategy and transformation, among others – with written submissions from institutions. The research covers the capabilities of digital-focused incumbent banks and their digital-only subsidiaries, as well as standalone digital-only challenger banks.
The quantitative analysis is grounded in a proprietary scoring framework that evaluates each bank against six criteria that are driving excellence in the fiercely competitive and fast-changing world of digital banking for consumers. Asia’s best digital banks MarketMap highlights top-performing retail banks, across two central pillars:
1. Strategy, partnerships and ecosystems
This pillar examines the most effective and successful digital banking strategies, financial and technology partnerships, and infrastructure enhancements that support the digital transformation and growth of the banking industry.
» Strategic execution of digital banking strategies, including growth and financial success;
» Ecosystem development including digital partnerships and open banking integration;
» Innovative consumer benefits and rewards programmes promoting customer loyalty.
» Customer onboarding processes, digital support services and initiatives promoting digital product use;
2. Customer experience, financial health and inclusion
This pillar examines improvements to customer experience, including onboarding and digital customer support tools, anti-fraud and banking security tools and initiatives, as well as products and services promoting financial empowerment and well-being, including savings, budgeting and financial planning features.
» Banking security measures, including cyber resilience and anti-fraud measures, promoting trust;
» Tools and programmes to support and foster wider financial-sector access and better financial habits.
Due to its general-purpose nature, the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) – including generative and agentic AI – was considered within each section.
Each bank is evaluated using a consistent 0–100 scoring framework across all six dimensions. Banks are benchmarked using evidence from documentation reviews, structured expert interviews, platform demos and usage data.
Based on their performance across the pillars, the top-performing institutions feature in one of three tiers:
» Leaders, who are ahead both axes;
» Outstanding, who demonstrate excellence in one of these two axes;
» Distinguished, who offer strong capabilities across multiple digital fronts.
Euromoney MarketMap: Asia’s best digital banks
DBS
DBS is a model for digital transformation globally and reports relevant metrics – notably value from AI tools and investments – with rare transparency. It acted decisively to strengthen systems after earlier disruptions, to prepare for future technological development. It has progressed in bringing international acquisitions to home-market digital maturity. The use of its app, including AI, to foster financial health has been a demonstrably successful focus, while financial-inclusion initiatives are notable even in its wealthy Singaporean home market.
China Merchants Bank
China Merchants Bankhas shown, in some instances even earlier than DBS, how banks can stage thorough and impressively scaled front- and back-end digital transformations. That transformation has helped CMB integrate wider financial and even non-financial services such as restaurant bookings, extending to loyalty tie-ins with its business banking franchise. Its AI usage includes battle-hardened anti-fraud capabilities and taking digital robo-advisory capabilities to the next level, even if its retail business is less focused on financial inclusion than some regional peers.
Rakuten Bank
Rakuten Bank has steadily grown its customers, while a wide and developing product range has seen it gain more primary accounts. Deposit balances are exceptionally high by digital-only bank standards. It has a growing banking-as-a-service (BaaS) business. Links to the Rakuten group and rewards programme help. While the use of cutting-edge AI was less evident than among some banks, for example in financial health, Euromoney expects this to be another area in which links to the wider Rakuten group will pay important dividends over time.
KakaoBank
KakaoBank has continued to grow rapidly, leveraging outstanding user experience, notably in the onboarding process, and in personalisation and gamification elements, including savings and financial health. Its heritage with KakaoTalk means ecosystem integration is naturally strong, such as group accounts and loan comparison services. A large balance sheet by developed-market neobank standards includes housing finance. Recently it has grown its retail-investing proposition. While Korea is a medium-sized market, new partnerships in Southeast Asia could bring some international growth.
WeLab Bank
2024 was a landmark year for WeLab Bank, partly thanks to strategic actions showing how lending must be central for almost any neobank. It was able to point to several differentiated new tools and features, in addition to examples of how AI-powered systems helped beat cyber-fraud and maintain good credit quality. The bank’s early phase and limited international development make it relatively small, and its financial inclusion focus was less obvious than at some banks. Nevertheless, new tools and features were orientated towards mass customers that sometimes included financial health, while also being fun.
Trust Bank Singapore
Trust Bank has grown rapidly under the ownership of Standard Chartered and FairPrice Group. The former brings regulatory knowhow and the latter integration to an established loyalty ecosystem, although how that translates to international growth is unclear. It boasts world-class onboarding times, while its intuitive simplicity and transparent ethos appeal to a wide audience. Savings and budgeting tools have gamification elements. It is exploring greater use of generative AI, although part of its unique potential in that regard is at an early stage.
HSBC
Despite wider changes to its retail business, HSBC has leveraged digital investment to consolidate its dominant share in Hong Kong. This includes new mobile onboarding for non-resident Chinese customers and adopting AI to improve anti-fraud capabilities and personalisation. However, it is not as orientated as some Asian peers towards integrating wider consumer ecosystems into its offering. HSBC’s complexity inevitably makes it less nimble than some competitors, although there are signs of cross-fertilisation in technology and innovation with its global business, including the UK.
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered’s critics often say fewer countries with larger retail shares would do better. But the group has achieved greater cross-border digital homogeneity, notably on the front end, helping efficiency and user experience. Its joint venture banks in Singapore and Hong Kong – Trust Bank and Mox respectively – have proven something of a model others are following and are important for mutual learning. Mox and Trust’s independence has been core to their strategic growth, but that independence does limit the ventures’ transformational power for Standard Chartered’s core retail bank.
Cathay United Bank
Cathay United Bank has focused heavily on improving digital customer experience, helping to boost digital user numbers in Taiwan – and bringing international growth via iCUB Vietnam, its Vietnamese digital lending platform. Other elements include investment in banking security; innovation around integrating its credit card and wider banking proposition; and allowing customers to choose from a rich variety of rewards programmes within its CUBE app. While merchant partnerships are core to these programmes, ecosystem integration has appeared slightly less prominent in its strategy than among some regional peers.
E.SUN
E.SUN has seen rapid growth in digital accounts, with an important part coming from partners including convenience and supermarket chains. Customer-experience advances include loyalty programme gamification, with customers earning rewards for carrying out certain activities in the app. Innovation around risk modelling, onboarding and digital lending has helped it achieve further growth. However, E.SUN is not realising as much in terms of international digital synergies in retail as peers elsewhere in Asia, potentially limiting its future heft in technology investment.
HDFC
With more than 90 million customers, HDFC’s digital transformation story is of global importance. Recent improvements include a more personalised digital frontend with alert and contextual nudge capabilities, video know your customer (KYC), greater use of data analytics to pre-qualify borrowers, and anti-fraud systems using behavioural biometrics. Individual business correspondents are helping it extend further into un- and under-banked sectors. However, evidence of consumer ecosystem integration and of rolling out generative AI or gamification to enrich customer experience was more present in other regional banks.
ZA Bank
As an early Hong Kong neobank, ZA Bank has gained a strong share of the local market. It has some challenges common to neobanks everywhere, notably profitability, but has made progress on that front. Operating in an extremely competitive market, its deposit sizes tend to be bigger than what we see at UK neobanks, for example; a reflection of the Hong Kong market as well. ZA has focused on attracting a bigger chunk of those deposits with new approaches to social media and gamification. It has also launched new products and innovations in retail trading.
ICBC
The world’s biggest bank by assets might not be as agile as others, but ICBC is by no means short of the scale needed for digital investment. An important proportion of its income and staff, moreover, are focused on deploying innovative technology: notably proprietary AI models. This investment has helped it rapidly disburse loans to underserved segments, improve digital security and bring customer service forward. The bank further stands out for plugging digital payments and financing into customers’ daily lives beyond banking, including health, education and other public-sector services in China.
Maybank
Maybank enjoys high market share in Malaysia and recorded a strong increase in digital customers and transactions, and high digital engagement. It has advanced on platform modernisation, albeit not as early as some regional peers. It adopted cross-border QR payments alongside partners, although ecosystem integration is less clear than among some regional peers. Its Money Lock feature was a first in Malaysia, with a demonstrable impact. Agent banking and mobile branches have helped financial inclusion, while savings and investment goals have become an important feature of its app.
CIMB
CIMB’s migration from Clicks to its OCTO app has been gradual but has brought tangible results, with new language availability, in-app instalment payments and updated security features. It has increased personalisation and streamlined onboarding and digital sales, tackling drop-off rates. Digital rewards and easier in-app retirement savings help with a push for affluent customers, albeit in a competitive field. It is leveraging its Touch ’n Go digital wallet partnership in consumer lending, while the partnerships of its separate digital bank in the Philippines include digital wallet GCash, boosting savings product growth.
UOB
UOB’s regional all-in-one app TMRW has been central to its Southeast Asian ambitions, especially after its acquisition of Citi’s retail business in four regional markets, with the last migration from Citi to UOB’s system completed in Vietnam in July. Its growth is not synonymous with any one retail ecosystem, but its regional mass affluent strategy is helping it attract prestigious international rewards partners. It is not focused on unbanked populations, but democratising wealth management is inherent to its app design, with content targeted to individuals’ portfolios and risk appetites.
OCBC
Growing app content recently pushed OCBC to refresh its front-end experience with personalised dashboards and shortcuts, and contextual recommendations such as credit card payment reminders – leading to higher app engagement. New partnerships with regional payments players led to a sharp increase in cross-border transactions, although third-party ecosystem integration and financial inclusion appear less integral than at some Asian digital banks. The app redesign further included a wealth summary under a net worth tab, together with savings projections, proportions of income saved and reminders about emergency savings.
RCBC
RCBC has fought back against neobanks to remain a prominent digital banking player in the Philippines. Its RCBC Pulz app combines a simplified onboarding experience with a growing range of features. Its partnership strategy is evolving, including working with local digital wallet GCash for cardless cash withdrawals and on the PHPX stablecoin and Higala payments projects. In addition to financial literacy and anti-fraud education initiatives, it launched a new scheme to allow account opening for nationals working abroad, while its DiskarTech app stood out for inclusive banking.
Siam Commercial Bank
Earlier this decade, Siam Commercial Bank embarked on one of the boldest fintech strategies in banking globally, with a vision to be a regional fintech group, of which the existing retail bank would be just one part. That focus has led to efficiency gains, although regional expansion and attendant targets in customer numbers have proven hard to realise. Most recently, it has worked on launching one of Thailand’s new virtual banks in partnership with KakaoBank and WeBank, promising a back-to-basics approach to technology infrastructure, AI and, ultimately, customer experience.
Kasikornbank
Kasikornbank showed market share gains on the back of digital advances, including credit analytics and integrations between its digital and human channels. Its partnership strategy included a tie up with popular Thai messaging app Line to create Line BK, offering various banking products, including among underserved segments. The bank showed various other innovations in AI and in financial health, including for younger customers. Kasikornbank enjoys a strong share of the Thai mobile banking market, but may experience greater competition due to new digital banking licensees.
Southeast Asia’s standout digital ecosystem
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most dynamic digital banking markets. Digital banks here are experiencing rapid growth thanks to financialinclusion initiatives and by gearing their apps towards helping consumers who wish to build wealth. Banking supervisors have also opened the market to newly licenced digital banks in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, with Thailand now following – with important implications for incumbents.
These newly licensed digital players are sometimes partly based on partnerships with local consumer or payments companies, ranging from supermarkets to digital wallets and delivery apps. In several cases, the new banks are the product of partnerships between established consumer ecosystems and established banks, such as Trust Bank of Singapore – a joint venture between Standard Chartered and the local FairPrice Group. Kasikornbank also partnered with Thai messaging app Line to launch Line BK.
Even when it does not involve the launch of a new bank, incumbent banks are finding growth from deeper consumer partnerships.
Partners’ ecosystems accounted for a large proportion of new customers at Techcombank in Vietnam, for example. A range of digital partnerships in Indonesia has allowed users of Bank Mandiri’s Livin’ app to buy tickets for flights, ferries and events, get vouchers for gaming features, access online news and more, boosting customer numbers.
Banks in several countries, most obviously Singapore, stood out for financial health features: nudging customers to better spending, savings and investment habits. One of various collaborations between Kasikornbank and MIT Media Labs saw the Thai bank use generative AI to allow users to chat about their financial targets and habits with a future version of themselves – complete with portraits of the user’s older self – with test results showing an accompanying motivational boost.
Financial inclusion is another field of leadership in digital banking in Southeast Asia.
Aside from its launch of Vikki Digital Bank in 2024, Vietnam’s HDBank has an app specifically designed for rural areas, including a streamlined loan application process, as well as relevant financial education and advice. This app helped the bank increase rural lending and the number of customers in rural areas to 550,000. At RCBC in the Philippines, meanwhile, its DiskarTech app is available in Taglish and Cebuano, and has features including no requirement to maintain minimum balances, microinsurance, low-cost transfers – 14c per transaction – and most recently unsecured loans.
The fruits of innovation
While some neobanks in Asia have achieved exceptional scale, the region has also provided some globally leading examples of how incumbent banks can transform for the digital age. DBS, above all, moved much earlier than other incumbent banks to replace mainframe systems with microservices, APIs and open-source technology, alongside a reorganisation of working methods around customer journeys. It has seen the benefit in its transaction volumes, and customer engagement and satisfaction metrics.
Other banks operating in countries with large populations have embarked on digital transformations and growth on a vast scale.
Transformations at scale
Out of 210 million retail customers, 123 million people use China Merchant Bank’s mobile applications at least once a month, handling everything from wealth management to restaurant bookings. And almost a 10th of its employees are in research and development.
In India, two thirds of HDFC’s 90 million-plus retail customers regularly interact with the bank’s remote-banking channels and an ever-increasing proportion of customer service journeys are handled digitally, reaching 89% in 2024. It recently redesigned the digital front end to offer a more unified, personalised view of the customer’s finances, plus capacity for new alerts and contextual nudges.
WhatsApp banking is also growing rapidly in popularity in India, notably at HDFC. And in Indonesia, Bank Mandiri saw users of its all-in-one app Livin’ surpass 30 million by early 2025, while BRI’s equivalent BRImo reached 38.6 million users, registering 4.3 billion transactions for an equivalent of $334 billion.
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s HDBank launched a new digital banking platform called Vikki Digital Bank as part of a collaboration with UK core banking software provider Thought Machine last year, driving rapid digital account growth. After the acquisition of Citi’s retail business in Vietnam and three other Southeast Asian markets, Singapore’s UOB now banks 8.4 million customers across the region. Prior investment by UOB in a regional all-in-one app TMRW has helped it integrate the Citi purchases, increasing its rate of digital customer acquisitions to around half of its total. Around 80% of UOB’s customers are digitally enabled.
As part of our regional ambition, we’ve invested heavily in a regional technology platform across our local subsidiaries, so that the products, experience and brand are consistently aligned to drive the outcomes we want to achieve
Susan Hwee, head of group retail, UOB
Even former colonial banks with hundreds of years of legacy are reaping the benefit of recent digital transformation and venture investment. HSBC has retained its dominant share in retail in Hong Kong thanks to digital investments and new features such as mobile onboarding for non-resident Chinese customers using an exit and entry permit. Its Hong Kong app reached a monthly user base of 2.2 million in 2024.
Standard Chartered has moved towards a common mobile interface across Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Korea and the UAE, with Taiwan soon to follow. That has helped it boost digital economies of scale and allowed it to roll out new features quickly across its network, such as its Discover tab – a one-stop-shop of personalised recommendations, offers and financial advice on the app, across multiple markets. Standard Chartered has also sought to learn from the experience of its rapidly growing new digital joint venture banks in Hong Kong and Singapore, Mox and Trust Bank respectively, through knowledge-sharing sessions.
While Standard Chartered has been bringing a lot of knowledge about risk management, compliance and the regulatory aspect to Mox and Trust, they in turn have brought fresh insights on things like customer engagement, being digital first and digital marketing
Mohamed Keraine, global head of digital, Standard Chartered
Neobanks secure their place
As Standard Chartered’s Mox and Trust demonstrate, neobanks can still find their niche – often in younger or underserved populations despite the digital transformation of older banks. That opportunity to bolster financial inclusion via new digital banks has prompted more Asian countries to offer new banking licences to digital banking ventures, including Hong Kong and more recently countries such as Singapore and the Philippines, where digital banks such as GoTyme and UNO have embarked on rapid growth.
Hong Kong’s ZA Bank was one the earliest of this new wave of Asian digital banks set up in the 2020s. It recorded a first monthly profit in mid-2024 amid a sharp rise in net interest income, passing 800,000 customers by the end of the year. ZA saw customer deposits rise 66% to HKD19.4 billion ($2.5 billion) in 2024. It is deploying a social media-focused and highly gamified approach to encouraging both higher deposits and engagement in its other products, partly drawing on KakaoBank’s example. Prize draws give new ZA savers the chance to win bonus rates of up to 18%. ZA also runs lotteries in which customers increase their chance of winning HKD1 million by using their ZA cards.
KakaoBank, founded in 2016, saw users rise by more than two million to reach almost 25 million in 2024. Its customer deposits rose 17% to KRW55 billion ($39 billion). Its operating profit rose by 27% to reach KRW607 billion thanks to a product suite ranging from current and personalised savings pots to mortgages, remittances and investments.
In Japan, megabanks are now ramping investment in digital banking as higher policy rates have bolstered their financial ability to do so. But digital-only Rakuten Bank (launched in 2001) has continued to grow thanks to a similar full-service offering, plugged into a wider consumer ecosystem. Rakuten Bank’s customer numbers passed 17 million and deposits reached ¥12 trillion ($81 billion) in 2024. Ordinary income reached ¥184.5 billion.
Foundations for digital growth
In general, Asian neobanks’ business strategies rest on several potential foundations. A simpler, and often more fun and exciting, user experience is one pillar. There is also the traditional lure of lower fees or higher interest rates; returning to the customer the benefits of lower costs of acquisition, service and IT versus branch-based incumbents. Or neobanks can benefit from integration with an existing consumer ecosystem, especially associated rewards programmes. Often, successful strategies combine elements, such as when WeLab Bank uses algorithms tuned to customer behaviour to adjust deposit rates and reward loyalty.
Excellence in banking goes beyond managing financials and the bottom line it’s about relentlessly pushing the boundaries of innovation
Tat Lee, chief executive, WeLab Bank
Leading on from deposit income, investments are vital fee generators, and neobanks such as KakaoBank are growing their offering as a result. ZA Bank introduced retail trading in US stocks and crypto last year, for example, at the same time as launching an innovative stock rebate programme. Credit, especially unsecured, is another early strategic concern, and some Asian neobanks have tended to introduce credit earlier in their growth than their peers in Europe. Trust Bank, for example, has been growing its investment proposition but introduced credit cards from the outset: tying into its joint venture partner’s rewards ecosystem, but in addition aiming to make the fee structures relatively transparent.
Better digital offerings around savings, investment, credit or simply payments are also boosting growth for some incumbent banks. The integration of DBS’s feature-rich NAV Planner into its app has been instrumental in boosting wealth-management revenue among retail customers, for example. In Taiwan, Cathay United Bank’s CUBE app took an innovative approach to integrating its credit card and wider banking proposition, boosting user numbers. CIMB’s migration from its Clicks to a more personalised OCTO app came alongside a sharp increase in user engagement and transactions.
The ecosystem kings
The idea that the best digital banks will be plugged into wider consumer ecosystems has spread around the world. Yet the concept’s epicentre is in Asia, where digital-only challenger banks have commonly grown out of dominant e-commerce and payments companies. Financial supervisors have, moreover, responded to calls for greater low-cost digital banking competition by pushing applicants for new licences to demonstrate solid and differentiated business plans, which has often encouraged joint ventures with established local retail players.
The importance of the partner
Trust Bank in Singapore is a good example of a newly licensed bank predicated partly on a partnership with an established retailer. Established in 2022, it is a joint venture between Standard Chartered and FairPrice Group, which runs Singapore’s biggest supermarket chain. Largely as a result, in a country of around six million people, it has gained more than one million customers.
Initially, the partnership meant that Trust enjoyed ready-made advertising in the supermarkets. But perhaps more important is the way it allowed Trust to integrate into the loyalty points scheme run by FairPrice. FairPrice group also has an insurance company, offering further cross-sell opportunities within the partnership, including a bespoke travel insurance product launched in 2024. Using AI, such partnerships offer the potential for greater personalised market campaigns, by integrating data from the bank and the retailer.
Standard Chartered-owned digital bank Mox was also founded in 2020 as a partnership between the bank, Hong Kong Telecom, PCCW and Trip.com – allowing Mox to plug into wider lifestyle features and rewards programmes, notably around travel.
KakaoBank, founded in 2016, is the fruit of a partnership between Korea Investment Holdings and Kakao Corp, which had already built a highly successful mobile messaging app, mobile payments service and digital wallet in Korea. One of its most notable features in recent years is a loan comparison service launched in late 2023 that it is progressing in terms of the list of partner banks and features.
Rakuten Bank, while older, is similarly an intrinsic part of Rakuten Group. Centred on e-commerce, Rakuten has more than 70 services from travel to digital continent, and telecoms, in addition to financial services ranging from credit cards to investment, and payments, as well as banking. Rakuten Bank customers can earn Rakuten Points with each transaction by linking their account to their Rakuten membership. The e-commerce platform Rakuten Ichiba allows customers to earn up to 50% more points when they use their Rakuten Card or when their Rakuten Bank account is used to pay in salaries and pensions. This ecosystem approach is essential to Rakuten Bank’s success.
A new wave of neobanks
Countries and regions including Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and most recently Bangladesh, Pakistan and Thailand have all followed the model of opening the sector to newly licensed digital banks, often linked to established local or overseas groups – spurring a new wave of potential digital banking leaders.
Banks including UNO and GoTyme Bank were part of six new licences handed out by the central bank of the Philippines in 2021. While some digital-only banks in the Philippines have gained success thanks to linking accounts to popular digital wallet GCash – notably CIMB – GoTyme is linked to TymeBank, which has a successful digital bank in South Africa. GoTyme leverages TymeBank’s technology, brand, knowhow and product set. It is also plugged into the marketing and loyalty programmes of the local Gokongwei Group, which includes consumer businesses ranging from supermarkets, telecoms, airlines and hotels. GoTyme had surpassed seven million users in mid-2025.
We’ve been able to expand and acquire customers quickly in the Philippines by leveraging the Gokongwei retail ecosystem, by releasing products quickly thanks to using the tech, IP and know-how we’ve built in South Africa
Aaron Foo, chief product officer, Tyme Group
In Thailand, two of the three new licences have gone to joint ventures involving established banks, Krung Thai Bank and Siam Commercial Bank. Krung Thai Bank is launching a new digital bank alongside local telecoms and energy groups. Siam Commercial Bank’s version, forged via its new umbrella group SCBX, is in partnership with KakaoBank and China’s WeBank, and plays into SCBX’s wider strategy of building portfolio companies that enjoy group synergies but independent governance – ranging from banking to auto finance and crypto trading platforms.
Incumbents putting themselves at the centre
More established banks, however, are building their own digital ecosystems and loyalty programmes, often linked to regional travel and growth strategies.
In Singapore, DBS’s mobile wallet PayLah! marked its 10th year in service in 2024 when it hit a record of almost 42 million logins a month. The app integrates a wide range of stamp cards, deals and rewards spanning retail, entertainment, travel and rewards. It also offers peer-to-peer payments. And after the acquisition of Citi’s consumer businesses, UOB is attracting companies looking for a single card rewards partner across Southeast Asia – from airlines, hotels and restaurants, to events promoters.
Taiwanese banks have also developed innovative loyalty programmes. Cathay United Bank allows customers to switch or choose between types of rewards programmes on its app. E.SUN has developed a wide network of retail partnerships and adds a gamification element whereby customers earn points for carrying out different activities in its app – and get double points on their birthday.
Digitalisation is allowing banks to tie their retail rewards programme to a larger number of businesses. China Merchants Bank, for example, connects small business clients, including local restaurants and other shops, with consumers via targeted offers. And Chinese banks more generally stand out for their ability to plug into digital ecosystems touching its customers’ daily lives. That includes ICBC, which has rolled out scenario-based financial services, including payments and financing, thanks to closer digital integration with Chinese health, education and other public-sector digital platforms.
How to excel in CX
Digital identity, cross-border onboarding, AI-driven automation and hyper-personalisation are transforming how Asian banks onboard customers and encourage early product use among their users. Getting this right is crucial. For example, in Malaysia, CIMB saw a 283% annual increase in digital account openings after streamlining its application process.
New ways to originate
The growth of digital identity schemes is foundational to speeding up onboarding. In Singapore, DBS’s integration of national digital identity Singpass into its onboarding process enabled instant account creation, with most new accounts opened online in 2024. OCBC also used the national ID system to streamline account opening for children, linking government benefits automatically. OCBC recorded more than 30,000 accounts being opened via mobiles in under 10 minutes. In India, making use of the country’s Aadhaar digital identity programme, HDFC Bank also adopted video KYC, enabling smartphone users to open accounts within hours.
Often using government identity programmes, Asian banks are further using digitalisation to remove geographical barriers to onboarding. HSBC Hong Kong introduced remote account opening for overseas customers, allowing non-residents to open accounts entirely online, and allowing customers to reactivate access by submitting a photo of their ID and a selfie, making use of Hong Kong’s identity system. RCBC in the Philippines and Pakistan’s HBL have also launched schemes to allow nationals to open accounts while they are working abroad, using their home country banking apps.
At the same time as speeding up their onboarding processes, banks are automating credit origination, sometimes using AI and machine learning. In Vietnam, HDBank introduced an automated credit assessment system for loans, allowing it to approve loans within minutes. Mongolia’s Khan Bank reduced loan disbursement time from three hours to three minutes through its Digi Pay platform. And HDFC pre-qualifies customers for some credit products using analytics, offering relevant services at the right moment.
In Taiwan, DBS used rule-based AI to overhaul its credit card onboarding process in Taiwan after its acquisition of Citi’s consumer business in Taiwan, allowing it to maintain processing times despite a surge in applications by reducing the burden on human staff.
Also in Taiwan, E.SUN Bank also received regulatory approval to use machine learning for credit scoring applicants without income proof. Its digital loan applications subsequently grew nearly 40% year-on-year. Nearly one-third of applications were approved within 24 hours, with the bank recording a positive impact on customer satisfaction. More widely, E.SUN’s unified application platform allows customers to apply for multiple products in one session, tripling cross-sell rates. CTBC, Taiwan’s biggest privately owned bank, introduced AI Skynet to detect suspicious applicants during onboarding, helping to prevent fraud.
As the onboarding process completes, AI is allowing banks to immediately tailor their interfaces and product journeys to individual needs, setting them up for a better experience. Standard Chartered uses data analytics to personalise onboarding based on client behaviour and maturity; adjusting tutorials, product suggestions, and support channels to suit each customer. Bank Mandiri in Indonesia uses AI-driven personalisation in its Livin’ app, adapting the interface and product offers to user profiles.
More services become digital
As banking products become more digital and AI advances, Asian banks stand out globally for customer-experience excellence and digitalisation at scale. Automation and AI-driven personalisation have already moved well beyond the concept to stage, as DBS’s use of AI nudges shows – pushing customers to better saving, investment and insurance habits. Elsewhere, Tonik Bank saw its integration generative AI help resolve 75% of enquiries without human intervention. Allied Bank in Pakistan deployed multilingual AI chatbots, launching an early example of a gen AI-powered chatbot in Pakistan in early 2025 in partnership with Kore.ai.
Generative AI is, at the same time, being deployed internally to improve customer-service fronted by humans, as DBS’s implementation of DBS-GPT showed – helping employees’ access to knowledge.
In payments, cross-border mobile services have become a priority, notably in Southeast Asia. UOB enables cross-border QR payments across Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, while Bangkok Bank connects Thai QR codes to Laos to encourage trade. Remittance services are also going fully digital, with RCBC in the Philippines routing funds straight into apps like DiskarTech. Some banks, such as ZA Bank in Hong Kong, are also getting involved in piloting central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallet top-ups to bridge currency ecosystems.
Partnerships with Alipay and WeChat Pay are also important for serving the cross-border payments needs of customers of Asian banks, outside China. Singaporean bank OCBC’s app allows customers to send free and near-instant peer-to-peer transfers to WeChat Pay and Alipay wallets in China simply by using the recipient’s national identification and mobile phone number, fuelling a sharp increase in cross-border transactions. Other international payments partnerships with Alipay or WeChat Pay include schemes with Bangkok Bank, Maybank and Khan Bank.
Meanwhile, services that once required manual intervention have already become digital, widening their scope. Wealth management is an example.
Singaporean banks have been at the forefront of using apps to bring wealth management services to mass-market customers. Yvonne Lau, DBS’s head of customer experience (CX) in consumer banking, recently described the bank’s NAV Planner to Euromoney as “financial planning for retail clients, on tap”. OCBC and UOB have also redeveloped apps with a self-service approach wealth management in mind.
Elsewhere, China Merchants Bank has developed a robo-advisory platform alongside its Xiao Zhao intelligent wealth assistant while HSBC’s Future Planner similarly helps customers map long-term goals.
We cannot have good business outcomes if our customer experience is not up to the mark, because customer experience is a very strong predictor of loyalty to the bank
Yvonne Lau, head of customer experience, consumer banking, DBS
An edge against fraudsters
Asia’s best digital banks are responding to a rapidly evolving cyber-threat landscape with increasingly sophisticated fraud-prevention strategies. Multi-layered security systems, AI and machine-learning integration, biometric authentication, customer education and real-time fraud monitoring are all part of the arsenal.
Product innovation also helps build fraud defences. Trust Bank Singapore and Hong Kong’s Mox, both part-owned by Standard Chartered, have introduced numberless credit cards to guard against theft and skimming. Money Lock features have also spread in Southeast Asia – allowing customers to block certain portions of their funds to prevent theft. At Maybank, this contributed to a two-thirds reduction in fraud cases in 2024. A similar feature at OCBC prevented more than SGD2 million ($1.5 million) in scam-related losses within a month of launch.
AI is bringing new security risks, but new solutions, too. China Merchants Bank used its intelligent risk-control platform Libra to block hundreds of thousands of fraud attempts. In its Cathay Shield 2.0 programme, Cathay United Bank leverages big data, AI and cross-border data sharing to increase accuracy in identifying suspicious accounts. CTBC in Taiwan introduced a fraud-detection system called AI Skynet to detect suspicious applicants during onboarding. Indonesia’s BRI reports a 40% reduction in fraud cases through AI-powered monitoring.
Banks are deploying biometric and device-based authentication to counter phishing and credential theft. HDFC combines device-bound app registration with IP-based step-up authentication and behavioural biometrics such as typing pattern analysis. ICBC combines facial recognition, voiceprint and behavioural biometrics to secure digital channels. HSBC Hong Kong adds GPS-based location detection and anti-spoofing controls to its mobile onboarding process.
At the same time, banks recognise that informed customers and staff are critical lines of defence. RCBC, for example, uses social media and SMS campaigns to share fraud-prevention tips. Cathay United Bank formed an internal anti-fraud project team to train frontline staff and review prevention strategies. CIMB in Malaysia combines real-time alerts with cooling-off periods and malware detection.
Speed is essential in fraud prevention. ZA Bank’s screening of hundreds of thousands of transactions daily saw decision-making speeds of 10 milliseconds. But as fast as banks put in new defences, criminals are also learning new skills, notably around AI. To stay ahead, banks must treat the threat seriously and invest appropriately on a constant basis.
New banks, new consumers
At their best, digital banks in Asia can bring new consumers into the banking sector and foster a generation of newly wealthy customers by promoting financial health.
Digital technology, as elsewhere in the world, can be a powerful route towards greater financial inclusion when banks have previously tended to ignore poorer and rural clients and in regions where traditional branch networks are thin and transport infrastructure less developed. In Indonesia, for example, 27% of Bank Mandiri’s Livin’ app are from non-urban areas. Its app also serves around 517,000 individuals in remote parts of the archipelago: people who might otherwise struggle to open accounts and access financial services because of a lack of physical branches.
The best apps for agents
In India, extending financial services to a wider range of society has become easier thanks to the growth of mobile telephony and the development of a public digital infrastructure, including digital government identity, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for real-time mobile transfers. For reasons ranging from preference to regulation and smartphone access, some degree of physical contact is necessary, but banks such as HDFC are also extending their reach deep into the un- and under-banked regions via individual business correspondents.
Similar agent banking schemes have grown across the continent, increasingly incorporating small loans and boosting economic growth. Indonesia’s BRI has one of the largest agent banking networks in Asia, counting more than onemillion agents serving around 67,000 villages. Its ethos has been to ‘Go Smaller, Go Shorter and Go Faster’ – meaning smaller clients, shorter loan tenures and faster distribution, thanks to digitalisation. It is increasingly using AI to track the performance of its agents and extend financial advisory tools.
One of the key factors for success in agent banking is how the agents connect to the banks’ systems via a suitably designed mobile app. Farmers in less-developed regions may need cost-effective deposit and transfer products, and small loans, but super-app-style features such as hotel and travel bookings are less relevant for them. In Vietnam, HDBank built an app specifically for rural areas with these concerns in mind.
Digital accounts for every consumer
New digital banks are also playing an important role in financial inclusion in Asia.
In Singapore, Trust Bank has targeted customers across the social spectrum with an easy onboarding process, designed to be a simpler user experience with greater transparency around fees and rewards compared with incumbents who often focus on richer parts of the population. But DBS also plays a vital role in financial inclusion in Singapore via its POSB brand. DBS has tailored its app and language provision to the needs of the hundreds of migrant and foreign domestic workers for whom it has opened accounts in partnership with civil society organisations, while also running digital literacy workshops for this important part of Singapore’s population.
In the Philippines, UNO Digital Bank gained more than 2.2 million in its first two years, extending almost half a million loans. Almost 10% of its borrowers were accessing credit for the first time and 30% of its customers are first-time bank users. It also offers free life insurance, benefitting more than 50,000 customers.
Tyme Group has focused on underserved customers from its origins in South Africa, seeking to offer a cheaper and more transparent product than incumbent banks. It has acquired more than seven million active customers in the Philippines as GoTyme and is now eyeing growth elsewhere in Asia, notably Indonesia, starting with merchant cash advances using transaction data, via partners. An investment by Nubank could now help boost Tyme’s ability to lend to consumers using transaction data.
Some incumbent banks in the Philippines are also taking a proactive approach to using digital banking for financial inclusion. RCBC’s DiskarTech app stands out. It has also worked to improve financial education and literacy alongside partners including government agencies and the Viber messaging app, at the same time as assisting social-security disbursements and digitalising national identity.
RCBC has also broken new ground by allowing the millions of overseas workers from the Philippines to open accounts via its app while abroad, using foreign mobile phone numbers. Pakistan’s HBL also attracted a leading share of the local central bank’s Roshan digital banking programme for overseas Pakistanis, hitting $1.5 billion in flows in late 2024. Also in the Philippines, BPI launched a new salary-on-demand and sweldo-on-the-spot product for customers having their salaries paid into their accounts, via the PayWage app, for people to get a portion of their paycheques before payday.
In Asia, popular super-apps – based on deliveries, ride-hailing, messaging, shopping or payments – also provide an entry into the banking sector for underserved populations, with in-app services launched either on an independent basis or in partnership with a traditional bank. One important example is the BRIAPI platform in Indonesia. Another is Kasikornbank’s partnership with Line, one of the most popular messaging apps in Thailand, creating Line BK – allowing money transfers, savings accounts and loans to a wide audience, including freelancers and people without fixed income.
New tech for financial health
Even in wealthier segments and markets, the best banks are advancing digital capabilities to boost customer loyalty and ultimately wallet share – not least by helping customers develop better financial habits and grow their wealth via budgeting and saving tools, and eventually digital wealth management.
Singapore is naturally a key market where banks are cognisant of the scope to accompany clients as they grow in wealth, via savings tools and wealth management features on their apps. DBS’s NAV Planner combines budget and savings features, with personalised nudges and alerts, and tools that recommend investments based on the customer’s personal goals, risk appetite and financial situation.
Trust Bank is less focused on fostering customers who might eventually transfer to the private bank – that is more of an aim for its part-owner Standard Chartered. But Trust has also put effort into its financial health features – adding a gamification element whereby savings pots are ascribed animated characters that grow with the money as if they are being fed, while different cartoon Budget Buddies are ascribed to different spending categories. Standard Chartered’s other digital banking joint venture – Hong Kong’s Mox – has also identified digital banking as a way to serve the wealth management needs of emerging wealthy clients in a user-friendly and cost-efficient way.
Also in Hong Kong, ZA Bank has even found a way to combine financial fitness with physical fitness. For example, its Walk to Earn programme rewards customers for meeting daily step goals with bonus interest rates.
Looking ahead: New challenges, new opportunities
Although Asia is notable above all for its diversity, much of the continent has enjoyed generally higher economic growth and less burden from ageing IT systems than other banking regions. As elsewhere, the digital transformation of banking in Asia has sometimes faced challenges ranging from cautious regulation – notably around banking licences and cloud adoption – to gaps in digital access and national identity.
Nevertheless, Asia has produced some of the world’s biggest and most innovative neobanks, while some Asian incumbents have achieved stunning technological transformations.
Asian digital banks stand out for the way they are bringing new consumers into the banking system while fostering a new generation of wealth and maintaining relevance by connecting their customers to wider consumer ecosystems.
Yet, Asian digital banks cannot rest on the laurels of the past decade’s achievements. While incumbents have enjoyed a degree of regulatory protection from digital challengers in some markets, a new wave of neobank is on the horizon. For their part, neobanks need to prove they can build a business model that can sustain their growth over the longer term.
Today, it remains unclear whether emerging technology – above all, AI – will play into the hands of the existing players or newcomers, not least given the scale benefits that can accrue to big banks capable of harnessing large amounts of data. Consider China Merchants Bank’s capacity to development proprietary AI models as an example.
Stablecoins could also be particularly important in countries with volatile currencies and large remittance flows. Even before the US’s Genius Act propelled stablecoins to the front of global banks’ priorities, a consortium of banks in the Philippines launched their own stablecoin last year with a view to serving overseas workers. But scaled stablecoin programmes will require large investments.
Digital banking in Asia is developing as rapidly as its economy and technology. The best players today won’t be the same as tomorrow.
I’m asking existential questions of my team now, because things are evolving as we speak. The challenge we have is to keep pushing the envelope around change and not to be afraid of it. What was done last year could be obsolete today
Tan Su Shan, CEO, DBS