ByteDance targets bank licence says source

Competition for one of the five electronic bank licences to be issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore is hotting up with news that Chinese tech company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, is teaming up with the Lee family to make a bid.

The news was broken by London-based The Financial Times quoting a source and widely picked up by financial news websites.

The Lee family is a big stakeholder in OCBC, a global financial services group which is based in Singapore and one of region’s biggest banks.

ByteDance is rumoured to want a slice of the banking action and is, said the source, working with the Lee family to finalise a bid for one of the bank licenses which will be issued at the end of the year.

Also in the running is Xiaomi Corp and Alibaba’s Ant Financial.

Parties involved in the reports did not reply to questions from the media.

Neil Martin

Neil Martin is the editor of Next Money. He is a financial journalist who writes on fintech, financial services and automation. He also wanted to be a backing singer for a R&B band, but he can't sing, so took up road cycling instead. Please feel free to follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Medium. And email him if you have a story, or thoughts on fintech in general: [email protected]