Customers of Sea-owned digital bank MariBank can soon gain exposure to global bonds via the Pimco GIS Income Fund, under the new, invite-only Mari Invest Income.
According to a Feb 20 announcement, Mari Invest Income investors enjoy zero transaction fees and can invest with just $1.
Investors will receive monthly distributions from the Pimco GIS Income Fund Admin SGD Hedged — Inc share class, which was launched on Nov 30, 2012. Since its inception, the fund has delivered an annualised return of 4.09% per annum (p.a.) and an annualised dividend yield of 6.49% as at end-2024.
As at Jan 31, the fund’s total net assets stand at US$90.93 billion ($122.01 billion). The primary benchmark of the fund is the Bloomberg US Aggregate (SGD Hedged) Index. Over the past decade, the fund has outperformed the benchmark, at a 3.31% gain compared to 0.73%.
In response to The Edge Singapore’s queries, a MariBank spokesperson says the bank has invited an undisclosed number of “active MariBank users”. Mari Invest Income will be gradually rolled out to more customers “in the coming months”, says the digital bank.
MariBank does not charge any transaction fees or ongoing fees, but the annual management fee for the fund — charged by fund manager Pimco — is 1.05% p.a. This is factored into each day’s unit price shown, and no further deductions are made when fund units are bought or sold.
According to MariBank, investors can place buy and sell orders via its app with a T+2 settlement. In other words, the transaction will be completed two business days after the order date.
MariBank who want instant cash withdrawal can turn to the digital bank’s first investment offering: Mari Invest SavePlus. According to the bank, more than one in three MariBank customers use this feature.
See also: From 2024: New digital banks struggle with profitability
Launched in September 2023, investors can start investing from just $1 and withdraw their cash instantly — up to a daily limit of $10,000 per investor.
The Lion Global Investors fund distributed under Mari Invest SavePlus has surpassed $953.3 million in assets under management (AUM) since its introduction. This fund, named the Lion-MariBank SavePlus, invests mainly in MAS Treasury Bills by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and “high-quality bond funds”, says MariBank, and it returned 3.46% p.a. from inception to end-2024.
In summary, Mari Invest SavePlus provides access to short-term cash management, while Mari Invest Income serves as a medium- to long-term source of income, according to MariBank.
“Mari Invest Income was designed for those seeking to enhance their income streams by simplifying investing, enabling customers to easily track their investment returns and monthly payouts,” says Natalia Goh, CEO of MariBank.
Goh joined MariBank in July 2024 from competitor Trust Bank, where she was its first chief operating officer. Prior to that, Goh was a managing director at Standard Chartered, where she was head of credit cards and unsecured lending in Singapore.
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MariBank was one of two consumer-facing entities that were each awarded a coveted digital full bank (DFB) licence by MAS in December 2020. The other is GXS Bank, backed by Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) and Grab, which unveiled its app and savings account on Aug 31, 2022.
The following day, Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) and FairPrice Group introduced Trust Bank, along with a credit card, savings account and family personal accident insurance. Trust Bank rides on StanChart’s qualifying full bank (QFB) licence, which the British multinational bank received in 1999.
MariBank, meanwhile, soft-launched to Sea’s employees in 3Q2022 before making its Mari Savings Account offering available to the public in March 2023. It followed up with Mari Invest SavePlus in September 2023, a credit card in July 2024 and instant loans in November 2024.
The latter, like Mari Invest Income, is currently on an invite-only basis.
For the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment, MariBank launched the Mari Business Account in April 2023, credit lines in June 2023 and term loans in October 2024.
Competitor GXS has taken a similar route, offering debit and credit card offerings to retail customers, a GXS Biz Account for businesses, as well as loans.
However, GXS has yet to launch an investment product. GXS retail head Jenn Ong first mentioned in April 2024 that such a product may be on the cards. In November 2024, GXS group CEO Muthukrishnan Ramaswami said the digital bank is aiming to introduce an investment product suite of low-risk, fixed income-based funds.
GXS retail head Jenn Ong (left) and GXS group CEO Muthukrishnan Ramaswami
A week later, Trust Bank announced that its first investment offering, TrustInvest, will be launched to all its customers in 2025.
Earlier this month, some Trust Bank users received invites to explore three TrustInvest products, titled Cash+, Income+ and Wealth+. According to a screengrab shared online by one user, these products appear to invest in money market funds, corporate bonds and equities.
In August 2024, Trust Bank CEO Dwaipayan Sadhu said he expects the bank to turn profitable around end-2025. The bank’s total revenue tripled in 1H2024 and it counted 800,000 customers then, which put it on track to become Singapore’s fourth-largest retail bank by number of customers by end-2024.
Trust Bank CEO Dwaipayan Sadhu (extreme right) at the digital bank’s launch in 2022
GXS, meanwhile, claims more than 3 million customers in the region hold either a GXS Bank, GXBank or Superbank account in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.
MariBank, however, is staying mum about its size. When asked about its user count, a MariBank spokesperson says the bank is “unable to share that information at this time”.
Photos: MariBank, GXS, Screengrab/Reddit, Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore
Read more about digital banks in Singapore:
- New digital banks struggle with profitability (August 2024)
- The digital banks that make a profit (July 2024)
- 'Welcome to our world': Local banks warn of tough competition for challengers (September 2022)
- Sea stays silent amid layoffs (September 2022)
- Standard Chartered's new regional wave (September 2022)
- Digital does not mean different: Can Singapore’s digital banks bring the fight to the three incumbents? (September 2022)
- 'Gen Z bank' GXS launches with Grab, Singtel backing (August 2022)
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