iFAST

[EnSabahNur]

i do have a different perspective.

i was wondering why will the average person not go to his/her local banks with a strong local presence (i.e. singaporean will think about dbs, ocbc, uob) and instead choose to bank with this "Global bank"? Is the global bank accepting customers that the local banks dont want?

i also dont see small digital banks compete successfully with incumbent banks. Digital banks dont seem to be able to scale effectively. Say different people from country A, country B, country C...., country Z want to take up loan, i will be skeptical that the small digital bank can underwrite all the loans smartly and efficiently. You will need to train personnel to be familiar with the rules and regulation in different countries, all of these cost money and i would say that small digital banks wont be able to do it effectively

According to the AGM replies, iFast is not intending to move into lending for now. I think they have some margin loans or might want to move into margin loans but right now they are focusing on taking deposits, putting the money into safe money market stuff and earning the spread.

As for this question " Is the global bank accepting customers that the local banks dont want", that is partly correct. the CEO believes that HNWI have access to offshore banking who accept their business, but these banks turn away individuals with 100Ks or so because they are not worth the effort. 

So he believes there is an underserved mass affluent segment which wants these services.

[EnSabahNur]

i do have a different perspective.
i was wondering why will the average person not go to his/her local banks with a strong local presence (i.e. singaporean will think about dbs, ocbc, uob) and instead choose to bank with this "Global bank"? Is the global bank accepting customers that the local banks dont want?
i also dont see small digital banks compete successfully with incumbent banks. Digital banks dont seem to be able to scale effectively. Say different people from country A, country B, country C...., country Z want to take up loan, i will be skeptical that the small digital bank can underwrite all the loans smartly and efficiently. You will need to train personnel to be familiar with the rules and regulation in different countries, all of these cost money and i would say that small digital banks wont be able to do it effectively

iFast doesn't even need to underwrite loans; they're sticking with a simple, plain-vanilla approach to earning 1 to 1.5%, close to risk-free earnings. Accumulating $15 billion to $20 billion of customer deposits shouldn't be a tall order to achieve in a few years' time, especially with the establishment of an AI center to accelerate the acquisition of new customers. We're talking about 400 headcounts in the center to service customers on this planet Earth!


When the CEO said that iGB would be a major driver going forward from 2025, I took it to mean that he would achieve it, as evidenced by the success of the e-pension project, which came to fruition despite earlier skepticism from the market..

I believe Mr Market would play a "delay-action" catch-up game in terms of pricing iFast correctly. Soon, they would realize that iFast is a massive goldmine with the license to print money, much like USA FED...$1b customer deposit = $1 in share price

How do you think AI will help?

[Curiousparty]

Very good write up!

https://mrtfi2024.com/2024/05/01/ifast-a...-snippets/

[Curiousparty]

iFast has still not entered the hockey stick massive growth period as iGB is still in the initial stages of collecting customer deposits. Hopefully, this point of inflexion will come sooner than expected.


"Hockey stick growth is the growth pattern that a company exhibits where initially there is a stagnant growth, but when a certain point is hit (point of inflexion), growth increases exponentially. Usually, such growth charts differentiate a startup from a small business."