China’s WeBank, MYBank and Suning Bank were named the top three leading digital-only banks in Asia-Pacific (APAC), recognized for their growth and success by The Asian Banker’s inaugural ranking of the world’s leading digital banks.
The Global Top 100 Digital Bank Ranking 2022, released on May 26, aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of global digital banks, ranking them according to a scorecard derived from a set of evaluation criteria across five key dimensions: customer, market/product coverage, profitability, asset and deposit growth and funding.
Of the 100 digital banks that made the 2022 ranking, 43 are located in APAC. These come from 11 countries and jurisdictions, with Hong Kong being the most represented jurisdiction (7 digital banks), followed by Japan and Australia (6 digital banks each), and China (5). Other APAC countries and jurisdictions represented include Indonesia (4), India (4), the Philippines (3), South Korea (3), Thailand (2), Vietnam (2) and Taiwan (1).
Looking closely at the top 10 digital banks in APAC in 2022, the ranking places China’s WeBank at the top of the list. Founded in 2014, WeBank is a neobank founded by Tencent, Baiyeyuan, Liye Group, and other companies. The digital bank is tightly integrated with Tencent’s social media messaging app and mobile payment app WeChat, and serves more than 200 million customers and 1.3 million small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients. According to The Asian Banker, WeBank is the largest digital-only bank in China with total assets of US$69 billion.
After WeBank, China’s MYBank and Suning Bank, took the second and third place, respectively. Formed in 2015 with a focus on serving SMEs and farmers, MYBank is a digital bank affiliated with fintech giant Ant Group. It was the first bank in China to establish its core banking system entirely on the cloud without any physical branches. At the end of 2021, MYBank had served over 45 million SMEs.
Suning Bank is a private online bank backed by Chinese retailer Suning Commerce Group. Launched in 2017, Suning Bank is an online-to-offline bank providing supply chain finance, SME finance, wealth management services, and more. As of late-2019, Suning Bank had 2.89 million loan clients.
At the fourth position is KakaoBank, a South Korean mobile-only bank and fintech company established in 2016 by Korea Investment Holdings and Internet giant Kakao. KakaoBank’s services include loan, deposit, debit card, overseas remittance and some other financial services. As of March 2022, the digital bank served 18.6 million customers, according to its first-quarter earnings.
After KakaoBank, Japan’s Rakuten Bank took the fifth position. Established in 2001, Rakuten Bank is the online banking unit of Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten Group, providing services including deposits, loans, and exchange transactions. As of July 2021, the digital bank recorded 11 million opened bank accounts, and it is now reportedly working on a public listing.
At the sixth and seventh position are China’s aiBank and South Korea’s K-Bank, respectively. aiBank, a joint venture between state-owned financial group Citic and Internet giant Baidu, is an artificial intelligence (AI)-focused lender, and K-Bank is an online bank controlled by a consortium of telecom giant KT Corporation, Woori Bank and other companies, that offers online banking services including handling deposits, loans, credit cards, and wealth management products.
The last three digital banks in the 2022 top ten APAC ranking are XW Bank, a Xiaomi-backed digital bank from China; SBI Sumishin Net Bank, a Japanese digital bank established by SBI Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank; and Sony Bank, a direct online-only bank in Japan established in 2001 by multinational conglomerate Sony.
Featured image credit: Edited from Unsplash
