Southeast Asia Tech Giants Boost Revenues with Financial Services Growth

Tech companies in Southeast Asia are increasingly turning to financial services to boost their revenues, with prominent platforms like Sea, Grab, and GoTo seeing significant growth in this sector. Despite tech generating just under 3% of the Southeast Asia 500's total revenue, these companies have shown remarkable progress in climbing the rankings. Sea, for instance, rose five places to No. 15 on this year’s list, with revenue growing by almost 30% year-on-year to reach $16.8 billion. Similarly, Singapore’s Grab rose 24 places to No. 128, with revenue of $2.8 billion, while Indonesia’s GoTo jumped 13 spots with sales of $1 billion.

Financial services have been a key driver of this success. Sea’s digital financial services arm, Monee, grew by almost 35% last year, reaching $2.4 billion. This momentum continued into 2025, with Monee’s revenue posting year-on-year growth of 57.6% in the first quarter, reaching $787.1 million. As of March 31, 2025, consumer and loans principal outstanding stood at $5.8 billion, up 76.5% from the same period a year ago. Monee, which launched an e-wallet in 2014, has since expanded to services like credit, banking, and insurtech, with most of Sea’s digital financial revenue and operating income driven by its consumer and small and medium enterprise credit business. Sea also owns two digital banks: Maribank in Singapore and Seabank in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Grab’s financial services business also saw significant growth, with revenue rising by 44% to reach $253 million last year. This momentum carried into 2025, with financial services revenue growing by 36% year-on-year in the first quarter. Grab started its financial services business with an e-wallet and has since expanded into loans for drivers and merchants, as well as digital banking through GXS Bank and GX Bank in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. As of March 31, 2025, Grab’s total loans disbursed reached $566 million, a 56% increase from the same period the year before.

GoTo has also set up its own financial services app, GoPay, which was launched in 2023. GoPay uses less mobile data than accessing financial services through the Gojek app, making it easier to access for those with less powerful phones. GoTo also holds a 22% stake in Bank Jago, an Indonesian digital bank. Revenue for GoTo’s financial services unit almost doubled last year, reaching 3.7 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($230 million).

The shift towards financial services is a natural progression for these tech companies as they aim to serve a population that is still largely underbanked. Financial services often have higher gross margins compared to their main services like e-commerce or ride-hailing. Tech platforms argue that their data on users, gleaned from their e-commerce or on-demand services, can help build a risk profile that can be used to judge creditworthiness. This allows them to disburse loans to a segment of the population that traditional banks may not want to work with. Digital banks offer another way to acquire more customers, encouraging users of their e-wallet services to open new accounts, which in turn provides more data and eventually allows these companies to offer other services like investment and insurance products.