Digital banks, possibly everywhere else in the world, unlocked their markets by being better at technology than the others in the market, but this is not the case for Singapore. The 2026 Singapore Digital Banking Report reveals that Singapore’s five digital banks compete on one big factor: the clients they’re serving.
From borrowers with little to no credit file to providing financial solutions within e-commerce ecosystems like Shopee and FairPrice, the five banks have proven that they’re making a mark over the years. But where does each bank stand?
The 2026 Singapore Digital Banking Report examines the FY2025 financial statements of Trust Bank, GXS Bank, MariBank, ANEXT Bank and GLDB, the strategies behind those numbers, and what the two profitable models did which resulted in positive payoffs.
GLDB and Trust Bank Have Cracked the Profitability Milestone
The two banks that hit the profitability mark in Singapore could not be any more different. Each aimed for a market it could serve well, and stayed on course.
GLDB Hit Profitability Without a Single Retail Customer
GLDB posted a full-year profit of S$16.1 million for FY2025, the first Singapore digital bank to do so on a full-year basis. Total operating income reached S$71.8 million, around 56 times its 2022 level and the steepest income growth of the five.
The bank puts its sheer concentration on MSMEs. GLDB concentrates on supply chain financing for high-growth sectors including technology and sustainable construction, where the product does two jobs at once: a business can extend favourable credit terms to its buyers while its suppliers still receive early payment. Business lending options sit alongside it for firms with broader financing needs.
The balance sheet shows that translating. Non-bank customer deposits crossed S$1 billion during the year, while loans and advances to non-bank customers grew about 57% to S$676 million.
Also, rather than developing capability in-house, the bank partners with specialised fintechs, an approach that possibly allows it to distribute financing facilities without carrying high direct costs.
The clearest expression of that model is embedded finance, where lending is placed inside the platforms customers already transact on rather than requiring them to approach the bank separately.
For example, back in July 2025, GLDB launched a global embedded finance programme with fintech platform 129Knots, giving borrowers across the marine fuel value chain access to working capital financing through 129Knots’ Origination-to-Distribution platform.
GLDB is evaluating a future IPO, subject to market conditions and regulatory approvals.
Trust Bank Grew Its Base Through Customer Referrals
Trust Bank recorded its first profitable month in March 2026 and was one of Singapore’s five digital banks to announce the milestone.
GLDB’s full-year results came later, drawn from its audited accounts, though in a curious twist, the bank noted on its website in July 2026 that Green Link Digital Bank had actually reached profitability back in September 2024, which would make it Singapore’s first profitable digital bank instead.
Trust’s FY2025 income before operating expenses rose around 39% to S$135 million, roughly 45 times the 2022 level, while the loss for the year narrowed about 42% to S$53.5 million.
Growing revenue 39% while cutting costs 7% is a combination the bank attributes to extensive automation and early AI adoption.
Much of the efficiency came from the top of the funnel. Acquisition costs, for one, stayed low because customers largely brought each other in. Trust’s referral engine has carried the bank past one million customers, making it the fourth largest bank in Singapore by customer numbers, with more than 70% of new sign-ups arriving through a referral.
Loans and advances to customers climbed around 47% past S$1 billion, and non-bank customer deposits approached S$4 billion. Trust credits its premium Trust+ tier and its gamified savings pots for pulling the deposit base towards that mark.
Roughly 170,000 customers also now use Trust as their primary financial institution, and salary crediting accounts for about a third of total deposit balances.
Underpinning all of this is an all-digital model that removes friction at the point of sale. Debit and credit cards activate instantly in the app, and personal loans reach existing Trust customers in 60 seconds.
GXS Bank Lost More Money Than Any Other Digital Bank
GXS Bank lost more money than any other digital bank in Singapore last year, and it is also the only one that has now shrunk its losses two years running.
GXS chose the hardest customers in the market: early-career workers and the self-employed and the gig economy, and a quarter of its FlexiLoan borrowers came with no real credit history.
MariBank grew total income fastest of the group, up around 53% to S$37.4 million, though its loss widened to S$55.6 million.
MariBank was built inside the Shopee ecosystem, and a customer who can open an account without leaving the app they were already in among the lowest-cost customers a bank can acquire. That strategy worked as designed: deposits climbed towards S$2 billion, the second largest pile of any digital bank here.
However, MariBank’s loan book stands at S$222 million, despite its deposit climb.
As for ANEXT Bank, its income before operating expenses eased about 5% to S$42.6 million and the loss widened 33.8% to S$49.8 million, while its loan book contracted to S$636 million, the only one of the five to shrink.
The report notes that ANEXT Bank is treating the spending as deliberate investment in technology, risk and people ahead of the demand it expects to serve.
ANEXT Bank has built something genuinely distinctive, with flat pricing that does not punish smaller firms and remote onboarding that has drawn foreign business owners to more than a third of its customer base.
DBS Earns GLDB’s Entire Annual Profit in Under 13 Hours
DBS booked S$13.1 billion in pre-tax profit for FY2025, OCBC S$9.12 billion, and UOB S$5.66 billion, respectively.
Meanwhile, GLDB made S$16.1 million. That is roughly 819 times over for DBS, 570 for OCBC and 354 for UOB. If we were to switch multiples with time, DBS’s pre-tax profit is on a whole different magnitude.
Sure, the comparison is directional, since the incumbent figures are pre-tax and GLDB’s is a full-year bottom line. The order of magnitude, nonetheless, still stands tall.
The Big Three Never Left a Technology Gap to Exploit
A key finding is that digital banks elsewhere in the world unlocked their markets by being better at technology, which is not the case here in Singapore.
DBS, for one, closed a US$1 billion synthetic securitisation, the first by a Singapore bank. It was the first to bring tap-to-phone payments to Android, and it has tokenised physical gold heading to retail customers in the second half of 2026.
OCBC has aimed its effort at the wealth business. Its generative AI training programme lifted wealth advisor revenue by 50%, also making existing bankers more productive.
The bank has a tokenised gold fund running with Lion Global Investors and DigiFT and an AI avatar banking app in beta as OCBC WoW.
UOB has put a technology committee at board level to oversee digital strategy and operational resilience. It is also exploring quantum computing to speed up derivatives valuation, exploring AI in regional digital banking with Vietnam’s FPT Corporation, and alongside Mastercard and DBS, it completed Singapore’s first live AI agent payment.
Why the Digital Banks Still Matter, More Than Ever
None of this diminishes what Singapore’s digital banks have achieved so far.
This is why MAS issued the digital bank licences: to ‘add diversity and help strengthen the resilience of Singapore’s banking system in a new digital era in finance ‘.
From lending to borrowers with no credit file to onboarding foreign business owners who never set foot in Singapore, the five have widened access in ways a traditional profit line does not capture.
Two of the five have now proven their models can work here, and the rest of the market is possibly competing harder as a result.
Get the full FY2025 numbers, four-year trajectories and strategic outlook for all five banks in The 2026 Singapore Digital Banking Report: The Battle for Dominance.
Featured image edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by vladimirpolikarpov on Magnific
