Ant’s blueprint for a global SME ecosystem has a digibank problem

Singapore-based ANEXT is the newest member of Ant Group’s Southeast Asia colony, another building block in Ant’s plans to build a global layer of services for SMEs. But stiff competition and a saturated banking space might prove to be too big for ANEXT

ANEXT ‘soft-launched’ in June, starting with the onboarding of SME clients. It’s not offering loans yet

As one of Singapore’s digital wholesale bank (DWB) licence holders, its target are small and medium businesses, not retail clients

Its goal is to create a layer of services that will power the growing number of SMEs operating cross-border, which already account for more than 85% of cross-border e-commerce in APAC

But competition is tough. ANEXT needs partners outside the confines of its own ant hill

It has been two months since ANEXT, Chinese conglomerate Ant Group’s digital bank, ‘soft-launched’ in Singapore. During the time, it has begun onboarding clients, offering them perks such as dual-currency accounts with daily interest. However, what ANEXT hasn’t done is something that makes banks their most money—loans. That’s why it was called a soft launch. It hasn’t shared the number of customers that have opened ANEXT accounts either.

It’s somewhat an anticlimactic outcome to Singapore’s digital banking race, given the fanfare with which the city-state initially kickstarted it three years ago. The opening shot was fired in June 2019, when Singapore’s financial services regulator, MAS, announced it would issue five digital bank licences.

AUTHOR

Rachel Chitra

Rachel covers the startup ecosystem and hopes to delve deeper into why Southeast Asia is the next exciting emerging economy. She worked previously for Forbes as its Asia correspondent.

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