Tech has a tiny presence on the Southeast Asia 500, producing slightly below 3% of the listing’s complete income. Only one web firm, Sea, sits within the prime 20, whereas 4 such corporations sit within the Fortune 500’s prime 20.
But the area’s most outstanding web platforms all climbed up this 12 months’s rankings. Sea, No. 15, rose 5 locations on this 12 months’s Southeast Asia 500 after rising its income by virtually 30% year-on-year to achieve $16.8 billion.
Singapore’s Seize additionally rose 24 locations, reaching No. 128 on this 12 months’s listing, with income of $2.8 billion. And fellow ride-hailing platform GoTo, based mostly in Indonesia, jumped 13 spots with gross sales of $1 billion.
All three platforms can cite one explicit enterprise for serving to drive latest success: monetary providers. None of those corporations began off as really fintech corporations. Sea focuses on gaming and e-commerce, whereas Seize and GoTo began off with ride-hailing and supply. However monetary providers is proving to be a simple–and doubtlessly profitable–path for the area’s tech corporations.
Monetary providers is a small, however rapidly rising, a part of Sea’s enterprise. Sea’s digital monetary providers arm, lately rebranded to Monee, grew by virtually 35% final 12 months, reaching $2.4 billion. Sea’s carried that momentum into 2025. Monee’s income posted year-on-year development of 57.6% within the first quarter, reaching $787.1 million.
As of March 31, 2025, client and loans principal excellent stood at $5.8 billion, up 76.5% from the identical interval a 12 months in the past.
Monee launched an e-wallet in 2014, and since then has expanded to providers like credit score, banking, and insurtech. Most of Sea’s digital monetary income and working earnings is pushed by its client and small and medium enterprise credit score enterprise.
Sea additionally owns two digital banks: Maribank, which operates in Singapore, and Seabank which operates in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Seize’s monetary providers was additionally the ride-hailing platform’s quickest rising enterprise final 12 months, with income rising by 44% to achieve $253 million. Once more, that momentum carried into 2025, with monetary providers income rising by 36% year-on-year within the first quarter.
Like Sea, Seize first began its monetary providers enterprise with an e-wallet. The corporate now provides loans to its drivers and retailers companions, and has additionally expanded into the digital banking house by GXS Financial institution and GX Financial institution in Singapore and Malaysia respectively.
Seize’s complete loans disbursed as of March 31, 2025 reached $566 million, a 56% improve from the identical interval the 12 months earlier than.
GoTo has additionally arrange its personal monetary providers app, separate from its flagship ride-hailing service Gojek. GoPay, launched in 2023, makes use of much less cell information than having to make use of GoPay by the Gojek app, making it simpler to entry for these with much less highly effective telephones. GoTo additionally holds a 22% stake in Financial institution Jago, an Indonesian digital financial institution.
Income for Goto’s monetary providers unit virtually doubled final 12 months, reaching 3.7 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($230 million).
Why put money into monetary providers?
Monetary providers continues to be a smaller enterprise for Sea, Seize and GoTo when in comparison with their predominant providers, but it surely’s a pure development for these tech corporations as they attempt to serve a inhabitants that’s nonetheless largely underbanked. Gross margins for monetary providers are additionally typically greater in comparison with their predominant providers supplied like e-commerce or ride-hailing.
These prospects usually current better dangers for conventional monetary establishments. However tech platforms argue their information on customers, gleaned from their e-commerce or on-demand providers, will help construct a threat profile that can be utilized to guage creditworthiness, thereby permitting them to disburse loans to a phase of inhabitants that conventional banks might not wish to work with.
Digital banks provide one other option to purchase extra prospects. Seize, Sea or GoTo can encourage customers of their e-wallet providers to open a brand new account with a digital financial institution. That, in flip, will give these corporations extra information, and finally begin providing different providers like funding and insurance coverage merchandise.
