Singapore’s Tyme Group delivers the world’s fastest profitable standalone digital bank; over $215m annualized revenue

This week, Singapore-based global digital banking group Tyme announced their annual revenue run rate at SGD 215 million, as its flagship South African TymeBank becomes the world’s fastest, profitable standalone digital bank.

This puts TymeBank in the top 5 percent of digital banks globally, with a study by global consultancy Simon-Kucher finding that fewer than 5 percent of digital banks around the world are profitable. TymeBank also qualifies as one of the world’s fastest-growing digital banks, as it secured 8.5 million customers since its launch in February 2019 and achieved 30 percent growth in its SME lending portfolio in 2023.

Tyme’s Philippines operation GoTyme Bank [8], a joint venture with the Gokongwei Group, has also reached 2.3 million customers in just 14 months, beating even Tyme’s South Africa operation, and made Tyme’s successful merchant cash advance product available to the 1.1 million MSME businesses located in the Philippines.

This rapid growth brings Tyme’s total customer numbers to 10.8 million globally, and aligns strongly with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) goal of establishing Singapore as a key global financial center in Asia, fostering global market connections, and aiding Asia’s development broadly.

Tyme Group attributes its record-breaking success to a unique strategy it employs in its target emerging markets:

• A high-tech / high-touch approach that combines digital banking channels with the human touch of kiosks and banking ambassadors in partnership with nation-wide retailers
• A goal of creating the most affordable banking offering in the market, with a cost structure of ~10 percent of the incumbents
• Consistent innovation in tech, product, and customer experience; and the launch of regular “firsts”, such as the ability to open a full bank account and secure a personalized debit card in under 5 minutes, its interest-free Grant Advance product for government to person payments, and its buy-now-pay-later product MoreTyme through TymeBank, when the concept was relatively unknown in South Africa

“Our ambition is to become one of the top three retail banks in every market we enter, beginning with TymeBank in South Africa. Our proven track record of rapid growth, consistent product innovation and ‘firsts’, investor confidence and, now, profitability put us on track to achieve this audacious goal,” said Chairman of Tyme Group, Coenraad Jonker.

Tyme Group next plans to launch its SME cash advance products in Vietnam in coming months, where SMEs account for over 97 percent of all companies nationwide, but only 25 percent have access to affordable banking services.

This article was adapted from a press release from Tyme Group.