Ant Group, a Chinese fintech affiliate company of Alibaba aims to create infrastructure and platform to digitally transform the service industry. It strives to enable all small businesses and consumers to have equal access to financial and digital services that are inclusive, sustainable, and green.
The group announced a soft launch (the release of a new product or service to a restricted audience or market in advance of a full launch) of its ambitious project ANEXT Bank, a digital wholesale bank, a completely owned sister organization of Ant Group. The newly launched bank is in Singapore. The launch took place after Ant Group received approval from MAS to start the banking services on 2 June 2022.
Toh Su Mei, Chief Executive Officer, ANEXT, commented, “We believe it’s time to offer the next generation of financial services that are accessible and effortless for growing businesses. Amid rapid acceleration in the digital economy, business models are changing and pivoting to become digital-first, if not adopting a hybrid model. Financial services have to evolve and be where SMEs are doing their businesses digitally.”
ANEXT Bank showed a glance of the ANEXT Business Account with this launch. The account is a dual-currency account containing measures for proprietary security comprising three-layer authentication and remote enrolment.
The digital bank will lend its support to MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) of Singapore doing their business locally and regionally, majorly those who are eyeing global business expansion with cross-border payments.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said, “This marks yet another milestone in Singapore’s digital bank development journey, a strategic effort to ensure the banking sector remains progressive, globally competitive, and vibrant. Continuous innovation and new capabilities that digital banks are slated to bring will no doubt add more engines of growth to Singapore’s financial sector. MAS expects the digital banks to thrive and synergize with our dynamic financial institutions and raise the bar in delivering quality financial services and uplift Singapore’s financial sector to better support the growth of SMEs in Singapore, the region, and in emerging markets.”
