New Digital Bank Licenses Are Being Issued Fast—But Are We Building Them Right?
Sachin Rajat Sharma
Chief Product & Commercial Officer | Managing Director | Co-founder
By Sachin Rajat Sharma
New Digital Bank Licenses Are Being Issued Fast—But Are We Building Them Right?
By Sachin Rajat Sharma
We’re witnessing a new wave in global banking.
From Bahrain, Oman and Qatar in the Middle East… To Thailand and the Philippines in Southeast Asia… And Nigeria, Ghana and Mauritius across Africa…
New digital bank licenses are being issued with increasing velocity. Regulators are leaning in. They’re creating space for challenger banks that can serve unbanked segments, modernize financial infrastructure, and stimulate innovation-led competition.
But with every new license issued, a critical question looms in the background:
How do we build a digital bank that goes live fast — and stays scalable?
I’ve been in enough strategy rooms to know this is where many digital bank builds start to go sideways. Executives wrestle with trade-offs:
“Do we build everything in-house for control?”
“Do we adopt a platform to accelerate time-to-market?”
“What’s the cost of moving fast if the architecture doesn’t scale later?”
Let me cut through the noise: the idea that you have to choose between speed and architectural quality is a myth. And an expensive one at that.
The Hidden Cost of Building from Scratch
🔍 1. Extended Time-to-Market = Missed Revenue
Hidden Cost: Every additional month in development delays user acquisition, deposits, lending revenue, and partnership deals.
Real-World Example:
· Leading Digital Bank (Singapore) took ~21 months from license to public launch. Most of that time was spent stitching together core systems, KYC, payments, fraud detection, etc.
· In contrast, a Leading Digi Bank (Philippines)—built on 101 Digital—launched in under 9 months, rapidly scaling onboarding and lending volumes.
101 Digital Advantage: Pre-built user journeys (onboarding, KYC, lending, PFM) slash MVP launch time by 9–12 months, accelerating revenue capture.
🧱 2. Infrastructure & Integration Overhead
Hidden Cost:
· Custom builds require teams to integrate identity, payments, core banking, AML, and customer data platforms from scratch.
· Adds months of vendor onboarding, testing, and API orchestration.
Real-World Example:
· A GCC fintech building in-house needed 14+ vendors and custom APIs just to support onboarding, AML, wallets, and FX.
· Each integration added weeks of back-and-forth, plus future upgrade risk.
101 Digital Advantage: Includes 60+ pre-tested APIs (KYC, payments, cards, customer, FRAML), DevSecOps, and ready partner adapters—cutting integration timelines dramatically.
👨💻 3. Engineering & Maintenance Costs
Hidden Cost:
· Recruiting, retaining, and managing a 20–50 person engineering team over 18–24 months is a multi-million dollar commitment.
· Post-launch, you’re on the hook for patches, upgrades, monitoring, and compliance audits.
Real-World Example:
· A Southeast Asian neobank that started with a ground-up build exceeded $7M in tech payroll before hitting 50k customers.
· Burn rate outpaced traction, leading to investor pushback.
101 Digital Advantage: Composable, low-code tools (via Symplr) mean you can operate with leaner teams. Clients can maintain the stack with <10 tech FTEs.
⚠️ 4. Compliance Gaps and Regulatory Delays
Hidden Cost:
· Missing local regulatory nuances (e.g., in KYC, data retention, Sharia compliance) can stall go-live or force re-architecture.
Real-World Example:
· A Middle East fintech had to rebuild its onboarding after missing eKYC certification requirements—adding 3 months and $500k.
101 Digital Advantage: Localisation-ready design (content, adapters, data models) plus pre-built compliance modules (KYC, AML, Sharia, audit logs) mean you hit the mark from Day 1.
🔁 5. Rebuild Fatigue: MVP ≠ Scalable Bank
Hidden Cost:
· Many scratch-built MVPs aren’t modular or scalable—meaning every new product (SME loans, FX, cards) requires refactoring.
· You end up rebuilding your own bank every 12 months.
Real-World Example:
· A well-funded SEA digital bank had to rebuild customer journeys twice in 3 years to support new use cases (BNPL, SME).
101 Digital Advantage: Composable architecture means you launch fast and scale smart—with modular extensions (e.g. 101 Pay for SME, DigiBank Accelerator for Retail & Corporate).
🧮 Summary Table
Speed to Market Isn’t Just a Vanity Metric—It Drives ROI
Every month your bank isn’t live is a month of:
Investors notice. Regulators take note. Customers don’t wait.
A study by BCG found that digital banks with longer launch timelines struggle to break even, often extending payback periods by 2–3 years compared to modular, platform-led builds.
The cost of delay isn’t just operational. It’s existential.
The Smart Alternative: Composable, Scalable Architecture That’s Ready Day One
This is where 101 Digital comes in.
We’ve spent the last 6 years solving this exact problem—helping new and incumbent players go live in 6-9 month, with a platform that’s secure, compliant, extensible, and battle-tested across markets.
Let’s break down what that looks like.
What Makes 101 Digital Different?
✅ Modular Architecture, Built to Scale
Our NeoBank SDK and DigiBank Accelerator come with:
Everything is microservice-native, API-first, and designed to plug into your ecosystem without lock-in.
Whether you’re launching a greenfield bank in Bahrain or modernizing an SME stack in Malawi—this platform flexes to fit.
✅ Localisation, Without Rewriting Core Code
Launching in the Philippines? We support InstaPay and PESONet. Going live in Qatar? We handle Arabic UI, QCB compliance, and Shariah modules. Rolling out in Africa? We plug into mobile money rails, utility billers, and e-wallets.
We do this via:
In short: no painful rewrites. Just configuration.
✅ Figma-to-Code in Days with Symplr
We built Symplr to eliminate the frontend bottleneck. Your designers work in Figma, and the platform auto-generates Flutter/React code—ready for deployment. The same goes for docs: integrated Confluence publishing, Git pipelines, and re-usable components across teams.
Development becomes predictable. Rollouts become repeatable.
Why This Matters for New Licensees
When you get your license, the expectations are clear:
You don’t have time for a 2-year build. You don’t need to spend millions on infrastructure that won’t differentiate you.
Your job is to deliver banking services—fast, reliably, and at scale.
We’ve already helped banks do this in:
Let’s Be Honest: Rebuilding the Basics is a Distraction
There is no strategic advantage in:
These are solved problems.
Your differentiation lies in experience, distribution, and contextual services. Not in whether your dev team can build another loan origination form.
The Bottom Line
New digital banking licenses open incredible opportunities—but the way you build can make or break the outcome.
Choose slow, fragmented builds and risk missing your market moment.
Choose 101 Digital’s composable platform—and go live faster, scale stronger, and focus on what truly matters: creating value for your customers.
If you’re planning a digital bank launch—under a new license or as part of a modernization strategy—let’s talk. We’ll help you cut 9–12 months off your roadmap and build a bank that’s fast, secure, and future-ready.
"Insightful post, Sachin! The transformation in banking is happening fast, and neobanks are definitely reshaping how we think about convenience, speed, and user experience. Exciting times ahead for digital finance!"