The current state of play
As of May 2026, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has licensed five digital banks: Trust Bank, GXS Bank, MariBank, ANEXT Bank, and Green Link Digital Bank. MAS is not currently issuing new digital bank licences — the field, for now, is fixed at five.
This matters less for who might enter next, and more for what these five have already done to the competitive landscape they operate in.
The structural advantage digital banks start with
Digital banks don't carry the branch networks, legacy IT systems, or large retention-team headcounts that traditional banks maintain. That lower cost base shows up directly in their product terms: several digital banks in Singapore issue credit or debit-linked cards with no annual fee at all, as a permanent feature rather than a promotional waiver.
Where a traditional bank has to run a whole retention apparatus — TRV scoring, escalation queues, retention-authorised agents — just to waive a fee it charges by default, a digital bank skips the fee entirely and skips the apparatus with it.
Why this puts pressure on traditional banks, even without new entrants
With the licensing field fixed at five, traditional banks don't face the threat of an endless wave of new digital challengers. But the five that exist are enough to shift customer expectations. A customer who's used a no-fee digital bank card for groceries and daily spend has a live comparison point every time their traditional bank's annual fee notice arrives. That comparison doesn't require a new licensee to keep applying pressure — it's already baked into the market.
This is a meaningful part of why traditional banks have been expanding self-service digital fee waiver options and issuing more of their own no-annual-fee card variants over the past year: it's a direct response to what the fixed set of digital banks has already normalised.
What this means for cardholders
If you're holding a traditional bank card mainly out of habit, it's worth periodically comparing what a no-fee digital bank alternative would cost you in forgone rewards versus what you're currently paying in unwaived annual fees. For many cardholders, the traditional card still wins on rewards value — but only if the annual fee gets waived. An unwaived fee tips the comparison meaningfully in the digital bank's favour.
This is also a useful talking point in a retention conversation: banks are aware their card competes with a no-fee digital alternative, and framing your fee waiver request around evaluating alternatives (without needing to name a specific competitor) is a legitimate part of the retention pathway.
The clawbacks.ai approach
If you'd rather keep your traditional bank card — for the rewards, the relationship, or simply because switching is a hassle — but don't want to keep paying an annual fee a digital bank alternative wouldn't charge, our AI agent calls your bank and requests the waiver for you.
20% success fee only if it works. Nothing if it doesn't.