The concept of digital banks was first developed in Europe where it radically challenged and transformed the banking landscape. At present, digital banks have garnered a strong foothold in the United States and Europe, but there is still a long way to go in the Asia Pacific region. Digital banks, also known as neobanks, challenger banks or virtual banks, all have in common are they often started with no physical branches and leveraged technology to differentiate their offerings in the banking sphere.
Japan Net Bank was the first digital bank to launch in Asia. Sakura Bank, presently known as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, saw the opportunity for a standard payment method for Japan’s growing internet users, created a joint venture in 2000 to form the digital bank and offer small B2C and C2C transaction settlement. Though the digital bank began to offer a larger variety of products, the trend of digital banking only began to take off when China came into the picture.
China Banking Regulatory Commission issued its first virtual banking licenses to Tencent’s WeBank and Alibaba’s MyBank. Tencent was known for their popular messaging app Wechat and Alibaba was famous for their global e-commerce platform. When news broke out that a social media app and an e-commerce site were challenging the traditional banking players by creating digital banks, it was met with excitement from many consumers and corporations. Shortly after, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority handed out eight virtual bank licenses with the intention to catch up with Mainland China and Japan in disrupting bricks-and-mortar banking. This led to a wave of digital banks being set up across Asia Pacific. Examples of these newly formed digital banks include K-bank in South Korea and ZA Bank in Hong Kong.