Trust Bank sets the bar for digital banking in the Asia Pacific region

After just one year in operation, it has enlisted 12% of Singapore's total population as customers.

- Frances Gagua

FINANCIAL SERVICES 

One year after being launched, Singapore’s Trust Bank has already declared a very ambitious plan: become city's fourth largest retail bank in the country.

It may seem like a tall order, but in just 12 months, the digital bank — the brainchild of global banking giant Standard Chartered and Singapore supermarket chain Fairprice Group — has made great strides that other digital banks across Asia Pacific are struggling to replicate.

In its first anniversary in September 2023, the bank listed 600,000 customers. That’s easily 12% of the total population of Singapore. These metrics make Trust the “world’s fastest growing digital bank by market share,” Dwaipayan Sadhu, CEO of Trust Bank, told Singapore Business Review. in an exclusive interview. Two things are key to this: its ecosystem and its real-time feedback.

“Today, over 70% of our clients join us as reference from another client. So, you can see how strong our word-ofmouth referral has been,” Sadhu told attendees at the recent ABF Summit held in Singapore, where he delivered a lecture.