Digital bank Anext’s services a boon for small businesses

SINGAPORE – Mr Jason Chua wanted to take up a loan to pay for renovations and kitchen equipment at a cafe he was opening in one-north in 2023, but the traditional banks balked as the cafe was not up and running yet.

“They wanted to see customers. They wanted to see food coming out. They wanted to see that it’s already a running business,” said the food and beverage entrepreneur, who goes by the moniker Beng Who Cooks on social media.

Mr Chua, 33, turned to Singapore-based digital wholesale bank Anext after the banks rejected his loan applications.

The online application process was fast and responsive, he said.

In less than three days, Anext Bank approved his loan of $10,000, repayable over five years.

Mr Chua is among bosses of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) who have benefited from Anext Bank’s financing and business account offerings since it launched in June 2022 to help such companies gain easier access to financial services.

He also holds an Anext business account, which does not charge transaction fees for local transfers and requires no minimum balance.

Not having to maintain a minimum balance is helpful for F&B businesses, which may find it tough to do so during challenging times, he told The Straits Times.

Ms Jacinta Ong, founder of social enterprise Tea Ideas, also uses an Anext business account and said the zero transaction fees benefit small business owners like her.

“Such savings do make a lot of difference, especially if we have to make payments,” said the 49-year-old, adding that each transaction can cost about 50 cents and adds up to a substantial sum.

Ms Ong, who said she is not digitally savvy, decided to give it a try after her son told her about the Anext business account and its benefits.

She noted that the onboarding process was fuss-free and the dashboard on the bank’s platform is easy to use for non-digital natives like herself.

When asked if they plan to use Anext’s other services, Ms Ong said she is considering taking up financing with the bank to open new cafes, while Mr Chua said he had also engaged Anext for his other F&B businesses.

Users such as Mr Chua and Ms Ong have contributed to the doubling of Anext’s customer base from May 2023 to May 2024.

According to the latest figures, the bank’s cross-border transactions also increased by six times during the same period, driven by clients in the wholesale and retail trade, professional services, and information, communication and technology sectors.

The bank makes financing solutions available to over one million MSMEs across the region by embedding financial services into platforms that businesses already operate on, such as e-commerce platform Shopmatic and food delivery service DeliveryChinatown.

Nearly three years after its launch, Anext Bank has grown its offerings beyond financing and multi-currency accounts to include fixed deposits, to help MSMEs grow their wealth as they increasingly expand overseas.

Anext Bank was named the Best Digital Bank in Singapore by The Asian Banker in TABInsights’ World’s Top 100 Digital Banks Ranking 2025, which ranked over 160 digital banks globally.

The financial services research firm noted Anext’s “exceptional growth” in customer base, strong adoption of cross-border payments, deposits and loans, as well as products and features such as multi-currency accounts and remote onboarding.

Still, Ms Toh Su Mei, honorary adviser to Anext’s parent company Ant International, said that the bank’s journey was not one without challenges and roadblocks.

“Being a pioneering digital wholesale bank and launching in the midst of Covid-19 and a Vuca world brought uncertainties and challenges,” she said, referring to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that businesses have faced in the past few years.

Indeed, while the bank saw its income before operating expenses jump to $24.5 million in 2023 from $3.3 million in 2022, its losses have widened.

Anext racked up losses of $29.8 million in 2023 from $27.2 million in 2022, as total operating expenses surged 52.6 per cent year on year to $45.9 million in 2023.

But Ms Toh, who was Anext’s chief executive for nearly four years before stepping down in March, said the bank focused on solving pain points of businesses and creating demand through solutions that businesses did not even know they needed.

She said the bank is seeing steady demand, particularly from MSMEs seeking flexible, tailored financing options.

In 2023, Anext’s loans to customers surged 434 per cent year on year to $222 million, and deposits jumped 368 per cent to $295 million.

Anext has yet to release its financial results for 2024.

“Beyond financing, we are also seeing increased interest from MSMEs in other financial services that offer greater rewards. Our insights show that four in five MSMEs have never purchased investment instruments, despite nearly 40 per cent having considered doing so,” said Ms Toh.

Top barriers include a lack of excess liquidity and limited suitable investment options, which led Anext to partner asset and wealth manager Schroders to offer MSMEs more opportunities to grow their wealth, alongside Anext’s fixed deposit offering.

The bank plans to double down on its embedded finance strategy to expand its global presence and generate greater data-driven insights.

The bank will also have to keep an eye on customers’ wants.

Mr Chua, for instance, hopes the bank can offer a digital bank card on the Anext app, so he can simply tap it on a point-of-sale device when buying supplies from the supermarket instead of having to scan a PayNow QR code or do a bank transfer, which are the two options the app currently offers.

Ms Ong hopes the app allows her to save the Unique Entity Number (UEN) of a recipient on the app when making a PayNow transaction so that she does not have to manually key in the UEN each time.

There has been rising competition in serving SMEs. Green Link Digital Bank, the other Singapore-based digital wholesale bank, is similarly growing its operating income rapidly, although, like Anext, it was also loss-making in 2023.

But the SME space is clearly a draw. GXS Bank, backed by Grab Holdings and telco Singtel, said on April 14 that it is acquiring Validus Capital, the Singapore business of Validus Group, to expand its offerings for SMEs with digital lending and supply chain financing.

Ms Toh said Anext and other digital banks also need to have the big picture in mind.

The financial sector has to constantly evolve with rapid tech advancements and innovation, such as the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) with OpenAI and DeepSeek, she said.

The ability to harness AI, machine learning and big data will further transform how financial services are delivered, and digital banks have a key role to play, she added.

“As tech-led organisations, digital banks can complement the financial industry landscape to enable MSMEs to scale and compete globally,” she said.

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