It’s hard to miss GXBank these days. The Grab-backed digibank’s green-and-white QR codes have migrated from hipster cafés to kampung* mamak stalls faster than you can hail a GrabCar. That ubiquity is translating into real money: the bank now holds RM2.16 billion (≈US$460 million) in deposits, more than the other two Malaysian digital banks combined.
Yet scale has not flipped the profit switch. RAM’s report shows a pre-tax loss of RM 189 million for GXBank’s first nine months of FY 2024, the predictable hangover from onboarding blitzes and compliance build-out. Those red numbers echo a broader pattern among Southeast Asia’s platform banks: they hoover up cheap funding at break-neck speed, but the alchemy that turns ringgit into earnings takes longer than a food-delivery run in Friday traffic.
A glimmer of black ink — but higher up the org chart
Grab itself is inching into the black. The Nasdaq-listed super-app reported a US$10 million group profit for Q1 2025, reversing a nine-figure loss a year earlier as rides and deliveries rebounded. Peel back the layers, though, and the financial-services unit that houses GXBank still bleeds: segment-adjusted EBITDA was negative US$30 million for the quarter, dragged lower by loan-loss provisions on the bank’s fast-growing micro-credit book.
When Growth Models Meet Monetary Guardrails
Grab’s thesis is textbook platform banking: funnel riders and diners into savings pockets, recycle those deposits into small-ticket loans for drivers and merchants, skim the spread, add fees, and loop the cash back into the marketplace. Loan disbursements did jump 30% year-on-year to US$630 million in Q1, the company says, suggesting the engine is turning.
But there’s a governor on the flywheel. Under Bank Negara’s “foundational phase,” each digital bank must keep total assets below RM3 billion for three to five years, a cap designed to let supervisors watch risk without crimping innovation. GXBank is already four-fifths of the way there; unless the ceiling lifts on schedule, the balance-sheet headroom it needs to turn deposits into margin will run out just as demand for credit hits its stride.
Deposit marketing and the price of loyalty
Much of GXBank’s early traction came from headline-grabbing promo rates. Savers earned 3% per annum, credited daily, on their main and pocket accounts until the bank dialled back the offer last October. A special Raya campaign even dangled 5% per annum on the first RM5,000, attracting enough cash to hit the RM1 billion placement cap in days. That generosity buys brand recall, but it also inflates the cost of funds. RAM pegs GXBank’s average funding cost at 3%, almost double Boost Bank’s.
Incumbents have noticed. Conventional lenders can’t match daily accruals, but CIMB’s digital OctoSavers and a raft of niche savings products now flash teaser rates north of 2.5% per annum to poach rate-sensitive millennials. If GXBank trims its promo budget too abruptly, fickle depositors may migrate at a tap.
Competitors in the rear-view mirror
The other two licence holders are hardly standing still. AEON Bank has amassed RM339 million in deposits and is leaning on instalment financing at electronics chains; Boost Bank focuses on SME working-capital lines via its Boost Credit pipe and sports the sector’s lowest funding cost. Both remain loss-making — AEON burned RM91 million, Boost RM43 million over a comparable nine-month span — but their smaller war chests mean they can hunker down on niche territories while GXBank fights a front-line war across retail, merchant and gig ecosystems.
Meanwhile, the big boys are playing defence. Maybank and CIMB have rolled out instant-open e-savings accounts with one-click access to their ATM networks and promotional yields tailored to payroll customers — enough convenience to sway users who value branch access as much as app slickness.
The profitability clock is ticking
GXBank’s own roadmap talks about “graduating from foundation phase” — code for breaking even — sometime between its third and fifth year of operations, roughly 2026 to 2027. Hitting that mark requires three things to click at once:
- Lower acquisition burn. The bank must prove it can keep deposits sticky without outsized promo rates.
- Loan book lift-off. Small-ticket lending to drivers and merchants has to scale fast enough to push net-interest margins above the current sub-2% tier.
- Cross-sell conversion. Insurance, wealth and BNPL widgets inside the Grab app need to deliver fee income that cushions credit volatility.
If those gears mesh before the RM3 billion ceiling lifts, GXBank could emerge as Malaysia’s proof-point that a super-app can mint a profitable bank. If not, the lesson may mirror Singapore’s experience: convenience and cashback attract customers, but banking fundamentals still take years — and strict regulatory airspace — to mature.
Bottom line
Grab has already demonstrated that loyalty points and ride coupons can funnel billions into a digital vault in record time. Turning those ringgit into sustainable earnings remains the unfinished chapter. The next 18 months will reveal whether the super-app flywheel is an engine of profit — or just a flashy centrifuge spinning harder than its balance-sheet brakes will allow.
