Grab and Sea Just Posted Blockbuster Earnings. So Why Are Their Singapore Digital Banks Still Losing Money?

No, not yet, at least not the way most people assume. Grab's and Sea's group-level results surged in Q2 2026, but their Singapore-licensed digital banks, GXS Bank and MariBank, both stayed loss-making for FY2025. The two digital banks that did turn a profit, Trust Bank and Green Link Digital Bank, got there by picking a narrow customer segment, not by out-teching the incumbents.

What Grab and Sea's earnings actually said about digital banking

Grab's Q2 2026 results looked spectacular on the surface: revenue up 22% year-on-year to US$997 million, adjusted EBITDA up 54% to US$168 million, and a US$235 million profit. Look closer and that profit was inflated by a one-off US$307 million gain from consolidating Indonesian digital bank Superbank. Its actual Financial Services segment, which houses GXS Bank, was still adjusted-EBITDA negative at US$15 million, even after improving from negative US$26 million a year earlier.

Sea told a similar story from a different angle. Group revenue jumped 48% to US$7.8 billion, and its digital financial services arm, Monee, grew revenue 59% to US$1.4 billion with a loan book up 62% to US$11.1 billion. Monee itself is now solidly profitable, posting US$288 million in adjusted EBITDA. But Monee spans SPayLater, consumer credit, and digital banking across several Southeast Asian markets. Strip out everything except MariBank, its Singapore-licensed subsidiary, and the picture flips.

Singapore's five digital banks, one year on

Singapore's MAS-mandated FY2025 financial statements for all five digital banks tell a more grounded story than either parent company's earnings call. Green Link Digital Bank posted a full-year profit of S$16.1 million, the first digital bank here to do so on a full-year basis, built entirely on SME supply-chain financing without a single retail customer. Trust Bank narrowed its loss 42% to S$53.5 million and hit its first profitable month in March 2026, riding a referral engine that has pushed more than 70% of new sign-ups through word of mouth.

GXS Bank's Singapore entity, by contrast, posted the widest loss of the five, S$132.1 million, even as it improved from S$145.4 million a year earlier. MariBank's loss widened to S$55.6 million despite total income jumping 53% to S$37.4 million. ANEXT Bank's loss grew 34% to S$49.8 million as its loan book shrank.

Why customer segment decided this, not technology

This is the part the "digital disruption" narrative usually skips. Everywhere else in the world, digital banks won by out-building the incumbents on technology. In Singapore, DBS, OCBC and UOB never left that gap open. DBS closed the country's first US$1 billion synthetic securitisation and brought tap-to-phone payments to Android first. OCBC is running an AI avatar banking app in beta and lifted wealth advisor revenue 50% through generative AI training. UOB has a board-level technology committee exploring quantum computing for derivatives pricing.

So the digital banks had to win on something else: who they served. GLDB targeted MSME trade financing that incumbents find fiddly to underwrite. Trust leaned on FairPrice's retail footprint and gamified savings pots to build a mass-market base cheaply. GXS deliberately chose the hardest customers, gig workers and the self-employed, a quarter of whom had no credit history. MariBank leaned on Shopee's checkout flow for near-zero-cost acquisition but hasn't yet converted that into meaningful lending, which is why its loan book is a fraction of its deposit base.

The scale gap is still enormous

Put the two pictures side by side and the gap is stark. DBS alone booked S$13.1 billion in FY2025 pre-tax profit, OCBC S$9.12 billion, UOB S$5.66 billion. Combine every digital bank's FY2025 result, GLDB's profit against the other four's losses, and the net outcome across all five is still a loss of roughly S$275 million. DBS's single Q2 2026 net profit of S$3.08 billion covers that more than ten times over, in one quarter.

The Big Three kept growing too. DBS's 1H2026 net profit rose 5% to a record S$6.01 billion, OCBC's climbed 13% to S$4.19 billion, and UOB's Q2 alone rose 10% to S$1.48 billion. None of them are standing still waiting to be disrupted.

None of this makes the digital banks pointless. MAS issued the licences specifically to widen access for borrowers the incumbents underserve, and on that mandate, GXS's credit-invisible gig workers and GLDB's supply-chain SMEs are getting financing they otherwise might not. It's a different scoreboard to "who's more profitable," and worth remembering before assuming the flashier growth numbers from Grab or Sea's earnings calls translate directly into Singapore banking dominance.

If you're weighing where to actually park your own cash between a digital bank and a traditional one, this guide to structuring your savings is a useful starting point. And if this kind of "who's really winning" breakdown is your thing, that's exactly the territory Chills with TFC digs into with investors and analysts who look past the headline growth numbers. Explore more investing breakdowns on TFC's Invest hub.

FAQ

1. Are digital banks in Singapore more profitable than traditional banks?
   No. Only two of Singapore's five MAS-licensed digital banks, Trust Bank and Green Link Digital Bank, were profitable as at FY2025, and their combined profit is a fraction of what any one of DBS, OCBC or UOB earns in a single quarter.

2. Which Singapore digital banks are actually making money?
   Green Link Digital Bank (S$16.1 million FY2025 profit, SME-focused) and Trust Bank (loss narrowed to S$53.5 million, first profitable month in March 2026). GXS Bank, MariBank and ANEXT Bank all remained loss-making for FY2025.

3. Is MariBank more successful than GXS Bank?
   On income growth, yes, MariBank's total income rose 53% versus GXS's slower pace. But MariBank's loss also widened to S$55.6 million, and its loan book of S$222 million is small relative to its roughly S$2 billion deposit base, meaning it hasn't yet turned its Shopee-driven deposit growth into lending income.

4. Why are DBS, OCBC and UOB still so far ahead despite the rise of digital banks?
   Because Singapore's incumbents didn't cede the technology advantage that let digital banks win elsewhere. DBS, OCBC and UOB have all matched or led on tokenisation, AI and payments innovation, so the digital banks have had to compete on underserved customer segments instead, a much smaller addressable profit pool.