With the ubiquitous smartphone in everyone’s palm today, it may be unimaginable — especially for younger investors — that the Internet was only beginning to emerge just 25 years ago. Today’s online trading tools may run as smoothly as any social media platform, but iFAST Corporation founder, chairman and group CEO Lim Chung Chun paints a difficult scene from the year 2000.

“If you wanted information on unit trusts then, you wouldn’t be able to find it because the main players in the unit trust industry were the banks,” says Lim to The Edge Singapore. “If you wanted information on the funds, you would have to walk into the bank and ask for information, but they would probably just give you some brochures on one or two funds that they were pushing.”

Then, the web was still a nascent concept to many — the haunt of a select few tech-savvy folk. But Lim saw a clear opportunity in improving this information asymmetry, especially for unit trusts. “The first thing was to provide information on the various funds that were available for investors. That, in itself, was already a substantial step in terms of being able to help investors. [We] then [provided] the ability to buy and transact funds and proceeded from there.”

Lim adds: “In the emerging stages of a big change, the opportunity was clear and we decided to grab it.”

Lim and his co-founder waited nearly a year before they received the relevant licence, and iFAST was incorporated in 2000 as Fundsupermart.com in Singapore, one of the pioneering digital wealth management platforms here. 

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A small team ran the earliest iteration of Singapore’s first online funds supermarket, including Wong Soon Shyan, who is still with iFAST today as chief operating officer. “At the end of year one, we had a staff size of about 15 people,” says Lim. 

From there, Fundsupermart.com grew with a digital-first mentality and a mission to help investors invest globally and profitably. Headcount doubled in the second year. 

“We want to help customers to invest profitably in the long run. Straight away, there are certain products that are the best for customers in the long run. These are typically stocks, bonds, unit trusts, ETFs [and] simple cash management solutions,” says Lim. 

When Lim launched Fundsupermart.com, he undercut incumbent banks by charging half their fee. “The banks were essentially charging 5% to buy into equity funds. When we emerged, the online players were charging 2.5% for a start, and that itself was already very significant value.”

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The digital-first firms were also “much better” at providing information, he adds. “So, the B2C business model was quite clear.”

In 2002, the B2B arm of the business was created to provide financial advisory companies and wealth advisers with a comprehensive and integrated suite of wealth management tools. Moving towards a global business model, the company spent the next decade expanding into Hong Kong, Malaysia and China.

Today, however, information on its own is “not a sufficient competitive advantage for business”, says Lim. “It’s really about the overall business model, the overall services that you’re able to provide. If you take the online financial services, I think companies are a bit different, but in our case, for wealth management players, we focus on wealth management products that will help investors grow their wealth in the long run. [For] B2B, B2C — we provide a good range of services to ensure that we can keep ahead of the competition.”

The company adapted along the way. Fundsupermart.com was rebranded to FSMOne.com in 2016, two years after iFAST listed on the Mainboard of the Singapore Exchange. More recently, iFAST branched into digital banking services with its UK-based iFAST Global Bank, acquired in 2022. 

Some 25 years on from Lim’s initial idea, iFAST has transformed into a massive digital banking and wealth management platform, with assets under administration (AUA) of $30.62 billion as at Sept 30.

‘Win-win’ thinking

Many financial institutions prefer to focus on capturing high-net-worth individuals as clients, but Lim feels this is already “the most competitive part of business”. “In the retail market, there are many areas where the services are not being delivered as effectively as they could be.”

By reaching out to various client segments, iFAST has found a “very strong base” for its business, says Lim. “We find that we do have quite a lot of high-net-worth customers as well, but we are not dependent just on them.”

From a founding team in the single digits, iFAST has grown over the years to employ more than 1,700 staff members around the world. According to Lim, over 300 of them are based in Singapore. 

The group even has a zero-retrenchment policy, says Lim. “I’ve never done a retrenchment with the aim of trying to lower our costs for the next few quarters. Personally, I feel that’s important, because businesses today believe in hiring and firing… But I feel that if you do that, then you’re sending a very negative message to your employees, which is that there’s no such thing as long term. An employee will then say, ‘Okay, I cannot think long term; I’ll think short term to protect myself.’ That really has a very negative long-term impact on how the company is run.”

Lim speaks of a “win-win” strategy that bears every stakeholder in mind, from customers to business partners, employees to shareholders. “That willingness to look at things from a longer-term perspective, rather than making decisions based on something that’s very short term — I think that’s important.”

This belief has bore fruit. iFAST Corporation is a remarkable all-round winner in this year’s Billion Dollar Club (BDC) awards by The Edge Singapore, despite not receiving any awards at BDC 2024.

The company has picked up four awards, namely for delivering the highest returns to shareholders over three years, the highest growth in profit after tax over three years and the highest weighted return on equity over three years. iFAST is also the overall sector winner in the technology sector. 

“Our overall intangible qualities — our culture and ethos in place in the company and that actually comes from this belief to think long term and have that win-win mindset. That’s how we keep pushing for progress,” says Lim. 

Wealth management

iFAST has also received in-principle approval for a broker-dealer licence in the US, which will allow the group to “directly access the US stock exchanges”, says Lim. “We’re not looking at tapping into the US market itself, but we want access to the US stock market directly, so there’s a tiny office in the US.”

Singapore continues to be the key contributor to iFAST’s core wealth management business, and Lim thinks there is still “a long way more to go”. 

Lim has increasingly mentioned iFAST’s “truly global business model” in recent years. “That essentially means we are looking at operating from a few key centres and being able to tap customers from around the world.”

After being passed over for digital banking licences in Singapore and Malaysia, iFAST is hoping for another chance in markets like the European Union. Still, Singapore is top of Lim’s wishlist, should regulators here decide to issue additional licences. “Singapore is a good example of a city-state being a very good place to operate from, because it means that the regulator would be a lot more pro-business, and that may help us to expand.”

Hong Kong business

In 3Q2025, the group’s net profit increased by 54.7% year-on-year to $26.01 million. The highest target price now is from DBS (Ling Lee Keng) at $12.00 after the 9MFY2025 result.

The main driver is the wealth management platform operator’s Hong Kong operations; as part of a seven-year contract, iFAST is onboarding trustees of Hong Kong’s mandatory pension fund to a digital platform, often referred to as the eMPF project. 

In October, iFAST followed up with 3QFY2025 net profit of $26.01 million, 54.7% higher y-o-y. This was supported by a 37.0% y-o-y increase in the group’s gross revenue to $135.82 million.

During the quarter, iFAST’s overall Hong Kong business (including wealth management and ePension) profit before tax reached $19.39 million, representing growth of 46.4% y-o-y and 23.3% q-o-q.

For the ePension project, iFAST is progressing to include larger trustees by assets under management (AUM). Management says the ePension division continues to strengthen its operational capacity and efficiency, with a particular focus on ensuring readiness to support the onboarding of larger trustees. 

Recurring net revenue in Hong Kong was boosted by the group’s ePension division, which management calls a “significant positive contributor”. The group’s Hong Kong business saw a 55.1% y-o-y increase in gross revenue to $53.76 million in 3QFY2025, contributed by the wealth management business and the ePension divisions. For 9M2025, the Hong Kong business achieved gross revenue of $134.70 million, up 34.5% y-o-y.

iFAST’s Hong Kong business posted profit before tax of HK$282 million ($47.4 million) in 9MFY2025.

“The ePension [business] has grown quite well; it has become the biggest contributor this year. We expect that to grow further,” says Lim. 

iFAST has even expanded this offering to Macau, though contribution is “still small relative to the size of the [Hong Kong eMPF] business”, he adds. 

“But with our other areas, [such as] the core wealth management business that we have, as well as the iFAST Global Bank, I think we have a long way more to go in terms of growth… We have a busy time ahead of us.”

Global bank 

After iFAST acquired a UK-based bank in 2022, the group realised there was strong demand for cross-border transfers. “Especially since we have a global bank business model, one of the things that we need to do is to be able to help the customers move their money efficiently and at a low cost,” says Lim.

iFAST Global Bank has an internal target of acquiring one million customers within the next three to five years. Already, iFAST has a million customers across the group.

In August, iFAST’s Malaysian subsidiary received in-principle approval from Bank Negara Malaysia to operate as an electronic money (e-money) issuer. iFAST Pay Malaysia will start with expanding and enhancing its multi-currency e-wallet services, prepaid cards linked to the e-wallet, and cross-border payment capabilities.

iFAST has been studying how to grow its payments capabilities, says Lim. “In the next one to two years, you’ll hear more about that from us.”

This is just one component of iFAST’s multi-faceted three-year plan (2025–2027). iFAST Global Bank turned profitable in 4QFY2024, and has so far achieved four consecutive quarters of profitability, with $2.01 million in net profit over 9M2025. It remains on track to achieve its first full year of profitability in FY2025. 

After notching $25.01 billion in group AUA at the end of 2024, iFAST’s group AUA grew 29.6% y-o-y in 3QFY2025 to a new all-time high of $30.62 billion as at Sept 30. The group targets $100 billion in AUA by 2028 to 2030.