Sea's digital banking move offers edge over Grab-led bid: report

Singapore

GIVEN the snug fit between e-commerce and digital banking, shopping platform Shopee's parent Sea Ltd may offer an edge over the Grab-Singtel consortium, with a fresh S&P report seeing these two bids as frontrunners for the two new digital full bank licences in Singapore.

"Digital banking battles will play out in South-east Asia's shopping cart," the report said.

The argument comes as e-commerce sales in Asean is due to nearly double to about US$80 billion in 2022, from just over US$40 billion in 2019, data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed.

Shopee alone accounted for nea…