Singtel, Grab Each Snag 16.3% of Indonesia’s PT Bank Fama

Telecom firm Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) and ride hailing and payments firm Grab Holdings Ltd. each bought 16.3% of Indonesia’s PT Bank Fama International to expand their offering into that nation, according to a Reuters report Friday (Jan. 21).

Indonesian conglomerate Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek), which remains the majority owner of PT Bank Fama International after the Singtel and Grab investments, said it sold part of the bank to “accelerate and expand business growth” of Bank Fama.

Emtek will own almost 63% of Bank Fama once it issues the shares to Singtel and Grab, it told Indonesian stock market officials, while an unnamed company will own about 5%.

Singtel and Grab each paid 500 billion rupiah ($35 million) for their shares, the report said.

Grab, which offers a ride hailing and food delivery service while operating a financial service business across Southeast Asia, confirmed to Reuters it had bought a minority stake in Bank Fama. Singtel announced Friday that one of its wholly owned subsidiaries had acquired 2.4 billion new shares in Bank Fama for $35 million.

Singtel has a digital banking joint venture in Singapore with Grab. The companies have also applied for a digital banking license in Malaysia.

Related: Grab-Singtel Ramps Up Hiring For Singapore Bank; Plans 2022 Launch

PYMNTS wrote in December 2020 that Grab, the Singapore digital bank that’s the product of a joint venture between Grab Holdings Inc. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., will hire 200 people before its launch early this year after the companies grabbed one of the two digital bank licenses awarded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Charles Wong, chief executive of the digital bank, said the 200 employees will work in technology in general — and in some cases, financial technology.

“There is no other platform in Singapore that delivers daily essential services to the lives of our customers, multiple times a week,” Reuben Lai, senior managing director of Grab’s FinTech operation, said at the time. “That gives us a touch-point that enables us to embed financial services.”