WeLab is on the lookout for banks to buy in Southeast Asia. WeLab Southeast Asia expansion plans could possibly involve new licenses and technology sales across Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines as it pushes deeper into the region.

Founder and Group CEO Simon Loong laid out the ambition behind this in an interview on BFM 89.9’s The Breakfast Grill. The expansion drive follows WeLab’s US$220 million Series D round, said to be the largest banking capital raise in Asia in 2025.

Simon shared that part of the proceeds is earmarked for Southeast Asia, alongside continued investment in its core Hong Kong business as well as in artificial intelligence.

WeLab’s Regional Ambitions Involve a SEA Shopping List

When asked whether WeLab is in the market to acquire banks in the region, Simon was candid about the Group’s appetite, which extends well beyond its existing markets.

For context, WeLab is buoyed by its successful acquisition in Indonesia and the launch of Bank Saqu, which onboarded 300,000 customers in Indonesia within two months of launch. The bank has reached 3.5 million customers within two years, according to Simon.

WeLab is now setting its sights wider.

“We’re looking at markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines,” Simon said. “I think there’s a lot of synergy given what we do for both our know-how, including bringing these banks to profitability, including the technology and the management.”

The group is targeting markets with a young population, a growing middle class and high levels of tech adoption.

While local players tend to stress how distinct their home markets are, WeLab’s approach is to look past that and find the common threads. Identifying similarities would allow the group to reapply what works in one market to the next, and in doing so, scale and potentially win.

Simon added that one of the banks under WeLab Group, WeLab Bank, is close to profitability, and that the intent is to apply that playbook across Southeast Asia to build a large regional fintech platform.

When pressed on WeLab’s most likely entry point into Malaysia, Simon said that the group is keeping its options open and is open-minded in its approach.

“Digital banking is just one of the many ways WeLab can enter into the Malaysian market. We love this market, and I think it’s a great market,” Simon said. “We can look into aspects like digital banking, online lending, and other ways, including selling technology.”

This vantage point of keeping its entry options open is likely shaped by experience, where WeLab and its consortium with Lightnet did not secure a digital banking licence in Thailand.

Why Banks Stumble, and What WeLab Brings to the Table

Simon was asked about what WeLab brought to the table for the digital banks it might acquire. To this, he zeroed in on two points he has seen challengers repeatedly stumble over: their technology stack and the discipline it takes to reach profitability.

The first, he explained, often traces back to a bank’s earliest and flushest days. Digital banks tend to overspend on technology and buy the wrong things, partly because tech vendors are at their most persuasive right at the start, which is precisely when a bank has just raised funds and has money to burn.

“They build a Frankenstein, where they put different technologies together. But after, when you’re launching the bank, it is in a different mode, with a very high uptime requirement, cyber security, and emerging fraud, and a lot of banks struggle on that front.”

The second challenge, Simon elaborated, was on how chasing the wrong KPIs, like going after customer numbers, deposit volumes and even market reach, had its aftereffects. Though the product figures look and feel good, the cost of buying them is where the trouble lies.

Every market has a benchmark base rate, and any interest a bank pays on deposits above that rate, Simon said, is a marketing expense.  The test for banks would be whether that spending genuinely buys sticky customers.

WeLab’s answer is to build a profitable base from the start and turn it into profitability through levers that compound, like net interest margin and net fee income, so that earnings hold up as the bank scales.

“What we (WeLab) bring is the capability to build digital banks with profitability at scale.”

How WeLab Grew From a Digital Lender to a Top-Five Player

Back in 2013, WeLab Group launched WeLend, which is said to be the city’s first online digital platform. It was built on the idea that credit could be underwritten and disbursed without a single branch.

“There are a lot of things that technology and digital experience are still able to disrupt. For example, when we first started, we were the first digital lender in Hong Kong, with 100% digital processes. It’s a big advantage, solving financial inclusion in the markets we operate in, where people don’t even have to travel to the branch.”

This soon led the Group to WeLab Bank, one of the eight digital banks licensed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

The bank reported profitability for the first half of 2025, with its performance driven by the expansion of its unsecured retail loan portfolio and wealth management operations.

In a competitive market like Hong Kong, Simon shared that WeLab has been able to reach the heights of becoming one of the top five personal loan lenders in the market.

“This is proof that a digital lender or digital bank with the right technology or strategy can actually compete with the large incumbents.”

Simon also explained that this is largely driven by how WeLab prices its loans. From his perspective, many digital banks have an inclination to compete with traditional banks, where they target near-prime or subprime customer segments.

“I think this is not the right way to go. They (digital banks) need to look at a better target segment, and that also comes with partnership, better branding and better propositions.”

He added on, saying that a new entrant also faces adverse selection, attracting customers whom other lenders have already turned away.

“You need to get through that hump with good branding, and you need to control risk and price properly for risk as well.”

WeLab Bank has plans underway to explore new verticals, including equities and bancassurance, this year.

What Simon Says On WeLab’s AI Bet With Google

The third leg of WeLab’s growth plan is artificial intelligence. Last year, the group announced a regional partnership with Google built around Gemini.

Through the partnership, WeLab will use Google’s AI models and agents to accelerate operations, product design, and marketing efficiency.

As one of its preferred cloud partners, Google Cloud will also support WeLab’s regional expansion, letting the company deploy AI-powered solutions across new markets faster and stay ahead of incumbents on innovation.

The group has rolled out an AI loan sales agent that answers customer queries over text, removing the need to speak to a person, and has extended the same approach to foreign exchange.

Additionally, WeLab has deployed 15 internal AI agents to support staff with everything from drafting press releases to brainstorming negotiation strategy, and is training employees to work alongside them.

Simon shares about the reality of WeLab, where there is huge potential for AI and its employees.

“WeLab does not have a large number of employees, and the growth will come from the same number of people, doing a lot more, rather than some headlines where banks say they lay off employees because they use AI to do coding.”

For now, the group’s ultimate focus is on turning fresh capital into a larger regional footprint, with a stated target of 500 million users across Asia by 2032.

Featured image edited by Fintech News Hong Kong based on an image by denphumi on Magnific