MatchMove confirms bid for Digital Banking License

MatchMove, a Singaporean FinTech offering a ‘Banking-as-a-Service’ platform, has confirmed that it has submitted an application for a Digital Full Bank License (“DFBL”) to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

According to a MatchMove media release, the firm is already acting as a digital bank, offering a Wallet-as-a-Service platform and what it terms as it’s full Spend.Send.Lend™ suite.

The firm manages the end to end process for millions of customer transactions across multiple countries in Asia, according to the media release, and extols that the acquisition of a DFBL would be a natural progression on from MatchMove’s current capabilities towards a holistic and integrated banking proposition.

Shailesh Naik, Founder and Group CEO, MatchMove, said “At its core, MatchMove aims to improve the quality of people’s digital life by extending essential and safe banking services to them anytime anywhere. Our proposed digital banking-as-a-service will accelerate this objective by leveraging our existing and already available capabilities to address current pent up demand and reach digitally underserved segments like SMEs and gig workers, amongst others. As a pure play FinTech, we believe we are well positioned to graduate to a become the digital bank of choice for enterprises, employees and consumers of the future, in Singapore and the region.”

The MatchMove led application brings together a world class consortium, according to the article, made up of Singapura Finance, Lightnet, and OpenPayd, all of which are premier regulated financial institutions in their respective markets and bring deep capabilities and experience across the spectrum of digital financial services to the joint application.

In addition, the firms involved bring along regional and global connectivity to enhance the proposed Digital Bank’s value proposition.

For Singapura Finance, participating in the DFBL application comes on the back of their close strategic relationship with MatchMove. Singapura Finance is leveraging the MatchMove Banking-as-a-service platform to power its Vivid Card solution and is also a strategic investor in MatchMove.

Jamie Teo, CEO, Singapura Finance, said “This strategy complements our existing business and steps up our digitisation efforts as well as enables us to diversify into new digital native segments and products.

Lightnet is a next generation clearing and settlement network across the Asia Pacific region with the goal to provide remittance infrastructure services by leveraging blockchain and connecting existing financial systems with its network of cash agents and wallets. Lightnet is targeting the unbanked migrant workers and SME trade finance in Southeast Asia as its initial customers. Lightnet was co-founded by Chatchaval Jiaravanon, whose family runs the Charoen Pokphand Group, one of Thailand's largest companies; and former investment banker Tridbodi Arunanondchai.

Tridbodi Arunanondchai, Co-Founder, Lightnet, said “We are excited to partner with MatchMove which is aligned to our regional banking aspirations. Furthermore, there are many synergies between our organisations beyond Singapore which we intend to explore and I believe we can develop a compelling proposition for the under-banked segment across the region.”

Iana Dimitrova, Chief Executive, OpenPayd, said “We’re delighted to partner with MatchMove and expand our global footprint into Asia. This partnership cornered around next-generation digital banking complements perfectly our enterprise Banking-as-a- Service strategy”.

Commenting on the viability of a pure-play digital banking-as-a-service, Naik said” “Additionally, as a key element of the proposed Digital Bank’s go-to-market strategy, MatchMove has assembled an ecosystem of FinTechs and businesses with ready access to large networks of retail customers and SMEs. The proposed Digital Bank will provide tailored and relevant banking products and services to these organisations and their employees, to SME clients and to the partners own retail customers. These confirmed ecosystem partners include a leading transport operator in Singapore, SE Asia’ leading insurance company, a regional payments acquirer, two leading tech start-ups focused on SME services, and Asia’s leading B2B enabler of online stores, amongst others Advanced discussions are underway with several other potential partners. MatchMove is differentiated by this ability to continue to expand its go-to-market partner base and thus reach more underserved segments quickly.”

“This capability will provide the Digital Bank with access to tens of thousands of SME’s and millions of Singaporean consumers with minimal additional customer acquisitions costs, making the MatchMove banking-as-a-service proposition more readily available and at a lower cost than traditional banking, and so provides a clear path to sustainable growth within the first few years of operation.”

“Furthermore, MatchMove’s unique business model and strategy enables it to be deployed across borders, and this is evidenced by strong interest coming in from consortia in other regional countries preparing for banking license application in their own countries. As such, the MatchMove approach will ensure a path to regional growth while further cementing Singapore’s position as a world-class FinTech hub.” continued Naik.