A consortium led by Singapore-headquartered fintech firm MatchMove announced yesterday that it has submitted an application for a digital full bank licence to the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

With its wallet-as-a-service platform and in managing the end-to-end process for customer transactions across multiple countries in Asia, MatchMove already acts like a digital bank, the company said.

"Providing full digital banking is a natural evolution of MatchMove's current capabilities towards a holistic and integrated banking proposition," it noted.

MatchMove has partnered finance company Singapura Finance, clearing and settlement network Lightnet and digital banking and services platform OpenPayd Holdings in its bid for the licence.

MatchMove founder and group chief executive Shailesh Naik said its proposed digital banking-as-a-service will leverage its existing capabilities "to address current pent-up demand and reach digitally under-served segments like small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and gig workers, amongst others".

Singapura Finance CEO Jamie Teo added: "This strategy complements our existing business and steps up our digitalisation efforts as well as enables us to diversify into new digital native segments and products."

Lightnet co-founder Tridbodi Arunanondchai said: "There are many synergies between our organisations beyond Singapore which we intend to explore, and I believe we can develop a compelling proposition for the under-banked segment across the region."

Mr Naik added that MatchMove has also assembled an ecosystem of businesses with ready access to retail customers and SMEs.

The proposed digital bank will provide tailored and relevant banking products and services to these firms and their employees, as well as their partners' retail customers.

Results of the digital bank licences will be out middle of the year, and the new digital banks are expected to start operations by the middle of next year.