Rise of Trust Bank as No 1 Digital Bank- Bad News for Grab and Sea

Recently Trust Bank announced it has attracted $1 billion in deposits. It has one of the largest number of depositors and is now the fourth largest behind by the 3 local banks

How Good is Trust Bank?

They are really good in the combination of offerings.

Bank Account- 1) No minmum (fall below fee), 2) No Monthly Account Fee and (iii) a 1.5% fuss free interest for your first $75,000 which does not have hoops to join (that is even better than DBS).

Credit Card- 1) No fees, 2) No FX Transaction, 3) Downside no credit card rewards

As someone who is not really into miles, Trust credit card is now my second go to card for overseas transactions after the Amaze card. While other cards offer 4 miles per dollar for overseas transaction, they carry in it a 3.5% fee. So effectively people are buying miles with the fees.

The Trust credit card, on the other hand, has no foreign transaction fee for overseas purchase. However, they do not give any benefits. The other downside is that Trust does not have a wallet function to store FX or has a 1% point rebate like Amaze instarem card. Otherwise, overall it is a great product. When compared to specifically Grabpay card which charges a FX fee and gives a meagre reward, the Trust Card is way ahead of Grab.

Rewards- When Trust consumers spend they get NTUC linkpoint, furthermore Trust occassionaly dishes out vouchers or promotions to reward its card users. These rewards are much better than that offered by Grab or Sea

Nightmare to Investors of Grab and Sea Group

The domaniance of Trust Bank in Singapore is scary. Given how good Trust is, it is likely Grab GXS and Sea Group will be fighting for the number 2 spot as the latter two are uncompetitive in terms of bank account and card offerings.

For Grab and Sea, I am quite confident to say their Fintech segment dreams are dashed by Trust Bank. Without the hold of a legion of bank depositors, they are going to struggle to gain traction. Unless these two can innovate to outperform Trust Bank or paratake in cash burn intiatives, I abscribe only a $100 million valuation of each of their Fintech Segment. 

To Grab, this means its company is close to worthless and I would not pay anything above its net cash value of US$5 billion, which is dwindling. Similarly, Sea will only be worth its e commerce segment which has turned itself around and is probably valued at US$20 million.

All in all, Trust Bank is going to kill Grab and Sea. As a personal finance blogger, I would recommend choosing Trust Bank over the other 2 for your banking needs.