Open banking a bigger threat to Singapore banks than digital entrants: report

Open banking may enable consumers to aggregate and compare information across institutions on a single platform

Published Fri, Sep 25, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Singapore

THE addressable loan market for Singapore's upcoming digital banks is estimated to be worth S$220 billion to S$243 billion, with these digital-only entities likely to catalyse loan growth in underserved segments, according to DBS Group Research.

For perspective, that's about a quarter of the local banks' total Q2 customer loan base of S$923 billion.

But even with such market potential, DBS analyst Lim Rui Wen reckoned that, over the medium term, open banking developments may be a bigger disruption force to traditional banks than the entry of digital banks.

As the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) spearheads efforts to make open APIs (application programming interface) available - and facilitates data portability in the interim - open banking may enable consu…