MariBank is a digital bank in Singapore launched publicly in March 2023 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sea Limited. Maribank is the digital banking arm of Monee (formerly SeaMoney), a leading digital financial services provider in Southeast Asia, and is supported by our strong ecosystem partner Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
MariBank’s mission is embedded directly in its name: “Mari,” which means “Let’s” in Malay, reflecting a welcoming “Let’s Bank” philosophy. The digital bank’s relentless commitment to simplicity shows up in products like a base savings rate with no minimum balance requirement, daily interest crediting, and bonus interest for Shopee VIP users or when you credit your salary with us.
#1 What Strategic Advantages Allow Maribank To Efficiently Optimize Funding Costs While Attracting And Retaining Deposits In A Competitive Market?
Our biggest strategic advantage is our direct integration with the Sea ecosystem. Because millions of consumers and merchants transact on our platforms daily, our customer acquisition cost is a fraction of the industry average. We do not need expensive marketing campaigns or physical branches to capture market share.
This low cost structure allows us to offer highly competitive deposit rates to attract retail funds efficiently. The result is a stable, low cost deposit base that provides reliable funding for our lending and investment products.
Moving forward, we expect our lending and everyday payment products to drive the next phase of revenue growth. For consumers, the Mari Credit Card has seen strong traction, particularly for travel and daily spend, driving transaction volume and merchant fees. On the business side, we are focused on scaling our business accounts and small-business loans, both on Shopee and externally.
Micro and small businesses are the bedrock of our economy, and these businesses often struggle to secure working capital from traditional lending facilities. By serving them effectively, we generate interest income while actively helping them grow their operations on our platforms.
#2 How Can Maribank Solidify And Expand Its Leadership In Singapore’s Digital Banking Landscape?
Our primary competitive moat is our deep integration into our customers’ daily lives. When users shop on Shopee, MariBank operates seamlessly in the background.
This creates a closed loop ecosystem that other players may not be able to replicate. Our growth is driven by reducing friction between commerce and banking, and every time we save a consumer time at checkout or give a merchant instant liquidity to buy inventory, we strengthen that moat and increase our share of their wallet.
We aren’t just a destination app you check once a month. We are embedded right at the point of transaction, allowing us to capture high-velocity consumer and merchant behaviours. That connected network is something other players cannot easily copy. Our growth comes from taking all those moments when you normally have to open separate apps and making them disappear. As long as we keep saving people time and money during their daily routines, our position in the market will only get stronger.
#3 What Is One Underappreciated Aspect Of Maribank’s Business Model And Value Proposition?
A feature we are truly excited about is our customers’ ability to save and earn interest in both SGD and USD. This is a new proposition that we have recently launched, so not many may know about it yet. This is available for both consumer and business accounts.
We see an increasing interest among our customers (both consumers and businesses) who are keen to have holdings in USD, either to earn higher interest or to facilitate overseas payments, so customers who have a Mari Savings Account and/or a Mari Business Account can deposit USD and earn up to 1.88% p.a., with daily interest.
If you are tired of tracking spending categories or worrying about maintaining a minimum balance to avoid fees at your regular bank, we are the stress-free alternative.
All you need to do is set up the account; it is the easiest place to park your spare cash and earn a strong daily rate. Our credit card is also the easiest choice for travel and everyday shopping without any mental math.
#4 What Impact Would A Change In Interest Rate Have On The Group’s Businesses, And How Is It Managing This Risk?
Interest rate fluctuations impact a bank’s net interest margins when funding costs rise faster than returns on earning assets. We manage this risk through two principal strategies.
First, our customer-centric savings products drive high core deposit retention, providing a stable, low-cost funding base that reduces our reliance on volatile wholesale markets.
Second, our portfolio focuses heavily on short-tenor consumer and micro/SME loans. This shorter duration lets us reprice assets quickly in response to rate movements, protecting margins and maintaining financial stability.
#5 How Has Artificial Intelligence (AI) Changed How the Group Carries Out Its Business?
Our approach to AI is simple. We ask: how does this help us continuously deliver better customer outcomes and thereby drive business value? We take a pragmatic approach: AI must deliver value through improved risk management or an elevated customer experience, and its deployment should be scalable across our banking group.
We apply AI where it delivers measurable value: credit risk assessment, anti-money laundering (AML) monitoring, fraud detection, and customer support.
For example, traditional AML systems inherently generate a high volume of false positives, which usually demands a massive manual compliance footprint. By using AI for behavioural pattern recognition, we have significantly reduced these instances. This, in turn, lets us handle larger transaction volumes securely without scaling our headcount linearly, giving our customers a much smoother, straight-through processing experience.
Editor’s Note: Some answers for this article were extracted from the SGX 10 in 10 series published on 20 October 2026 and republished with permission. You can read more about MariBank on the SGX website.
You can also read other featured companies from SGX’s 10 in 10 series on the DollarsAndSense website.
