Digital banks bet on AI to unlock outsized ROI

However, AI is everywhere except in ROIs.

Digital banks in Southeast Asia are pouring investment into artificial intelligence (AI) to drive returns, but industry leaders said the real test is proving that spend actually pays off.

Patrick Sze, chief technology officer of Green Link Digital Bank, said at the Asian Banking & Finance and Insurance Asia Summit in Singapore that the bank has built its AI capabilities within its own infrastructure so that no customer data leaves its controlled environment.

“We built all technology, including AI capabilities, after we had a proven business case and return on investment (ROI),” Sze said, adding that the bank has successfully rolled out numerous AI use cases to date.

Green Link Digital Bank has been profitable since September 2024, which Sze said makes it one of the fastest digital banks in Asia to reach profitability — a track record panel moderator Frank Liu, Principal at Kearney, said lends credibility to the bank’s ROI claims.

Liu said the industry cannot treat AI spend as a given. "AI is everywhere except in ROI," he said, calling it a timely reminder that AI investment must be measured against returns.

Other panellists echoed the need for AI spend to be tied to clear business outcomes. Philip Tan, chief financial officer of ANEXT Bank, said ROI should be assessed on whether it improves risk decisioning, drives monetisation, and scales beyond a one-off use case.

He pointed to embedded lending as an example of technology paired with the right partnership model, describing ANEXT’s approach as acquiring through ecosystem partners and deepening the relationship through banking.

"Ultimately, the ROI should be demonstrable to me," Tan said.

Pei-Si Lai, group chief executive officer of GXS Bank, said AI is central to how the bank manages risk — including credit, fraud, and anti-money laundering — as it scales as a digital bank without adding branches or relationship managers.

She said GXS Group had doubled revenue and tripled assets over the past year whilst costs declined over the same period, an outcome she attributed partly to combining AI-driven data capabilities with a purely digital operating model.

For Natalia Goh, chief executive officer of MariBank, AI and data capabilities are increasingly treated as reusable, foundational infrastructure rather than one-off product features, allowing banks to roll out new offerings faster and replicate them across markets.