iFAST has a 1 in 7 chance to become a digital bank. Here’s why. iFAST is one of the nine bidders who made the shortlist for the Singapore wholesale digital banking license and only three licenses will be awarded by end-2020.  iFAST is up against bidders which are partly owned by the Singapore government and the largest Chinese Internet companies. Here are a few bidders who probably made it to the shortlist:

1. Ant Financial: Temasek and GIC are minority investors in Ant Financial while Ant Financial operates a digital bank in Hong Kong.
2. Sheng Ye Capital consortium, which includes Phillip Capital and Advance.AI: Phillip Capital and Advance.AI are partly owned by Temasek’s Pavilion Capital.
3. AMTD consortium which includes Xiaomi, SP Group and Funding Societies: SP Group is wholly owned by Temasek.
4. ByteDance: Bytedance investors include Softbank, KKR and Sequoia. ByteDance is private but is rumored to be valued at USD100 billion

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