Why AI fintech is booming in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia's fintech sector raised over $5.5 billion in 2024 alone, according to McKinsey. AI is now the biggest driver of growth. Companies use machine learning to score credit, catch fraud, and automate payments at a scale that manual teams cannot match.
That growth means huge demand for talent. At Asiatal we placed 14 engineers at fintech startups in the last 12 months, and most of them work on AI and data pipelines. The hiring pace is not slowing down.
Here are the top 20 AI fintech startups in the region, with funding, category, and how they use AI.
The full list: top 20 AI fintech startups
| # | Company | Country | Category | Total Funding | AI Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GCash (Mynt) | Philippines | Digital Wallet | $675M+ | Credit scoring, fraud detection |
| 2 | Grab Financial Group | Singapore | Digital Banking | $700M+ | AI lending, insurance underwriting |
| 3 | Sea Money | Singapore | Digital Payments | Part of Sea Group ($6B+) | Risk modeling, personalization |
| 4 | GoTo Financial | Indonesia | Digital Payments | Part of GoTo ($5B+) | Fraud detection, AI credit |
| 5 | MoMo | Vietnam | Digital Wallet | $733M | AI chatbots, credit scoring |
| 6 | DANA | Indonesia | Digital Wallet | $313M | AI-based KYC, fraud prevention |
| 7 | Kredivo (FinAccel) | Indonesia | BNPL / Lending | $397M | AI credit underwriting |
| 8 | Akulaku | Indonesia | BNPL / Digital Banking | $400M+ | ML credit models, collections |
| 9 | Xendit | Indonesia | Payment Infrastructure | $538M | AI fraud detection, routing |
| 10 | Fazz | Singapore / Indonesia | Payment Infrastructure | $117M | AI compliance, risk scoring |
| 11 | Aspire | Singapore | Business Finance | $321M | AI expense management, forecasting |
| 12 | StashAway | Singapore | Wealth Management | $152M | AI portfolio optimization |
| 13 | Endowus | Singapore | Wealth Management | $65M | ML-driven fund selection |
| 14 | Syfe | Singapore | Wealth Management | $79M | AI portfolio rebalancing |
| 15 | Brankas | Philippines | Open Banking | $26M | AI data aggregation, APIs |
| 16 | Funding Societies (Modalku) | Singapore | SME Lending | $294M | AI credit assessment |
| 17 | Tonik | Philippines | Digital Banking | $215M | AI lending, risk models |
| 18 | Atome | Singapore | BNPL | $200M+ | AI credit scoring, merchant analytics |
| 19 | Investree | Indonesia | P2P Lending | $97M | ML borrower profiling |
| 20 | Advance Intelligence Group | Singapore | AI-First Fintech | $536M | NLP, computer vision for KYC |
These 20 companies have raised over $10 billion combined. They operate across 6 Southeast Asian countries, and they all use AI as a core part of their product.
Digital wallets and super apps
The largest players started as wallets or super apps and grew into full financial platforms.
1. GCash (Mynt), Philippines. GCash is the largest mobile wallet in the Philippines with over 93 million registered users as of 2025. It is owned by Mynt, backed by Globe Telecom and Ant Group. GCash uses AI for credit scoring, giving microloans to unbanked Filipinos based on transaction patterns, and machine learning for fraud detection. The platform processes over $40 billion in transactions per year. We recently placed two engineers from the Philippines at a startup competing in this space within 10 days.
5. MoMo, Vietnam. MoMo is Vietnam's leading e-wallet with over 40 million users. It raised $733 million in total, including a 2021 Series E that valued it at over $2 billion. MoMo uses AI chatbots for customer service, ML models for credit scoring, and AI to personalize offers. It runs a large engineering team in Ho Chi Minh City.
6. DANA, Indonesia. DANA is one of Indonesia's top digital wallets with over 185 million users. It raised $313 million from investors like Ant Group and Softbank. DANA uses AI for KYC verification, running facial recognition to verify identities, plus machine learning to flag suspicious transactions in real time.
Payment infrastructure
These companies power the rails other fintechs run on.
9. Xendit, Indonesia. Xendit is a payment gateway for Southeast Asia that powers payments for Grab, Traveloka, and Wish. It raised $538 million and was valued at $1.5 billion in 2022. Xendit uses AI for fraud detection and smart payment routing, choosing the best channel for each transaction automatically. Its engineering team spans Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore.
10. Fazz, Singapore and Indonesia. Fazz was formed by the merger of Xfers (Singapore) and Payfazz (Indonesia) and raised $117 million. It uses AI for compliance checks and risk scoring, automating anti-money-laundering processes with machine learning. The company serves over 1 million businesses in the region.
Super app financial arms
2. Grab Financial Group, Singapore. Grab Financial is the fintech arm of Grab, the region's largest super app. It runs a digital bank, insurance platform, and lending service, and has raised over $700 million separately. Grab uses AI across all products: ML for lending decisions, AI to price insurance, and fraud detection across millions of daily transactions.
3. Sea Money, Singapore. Sea Money is the financial arm of Sea Limited, which also owns Shopee and Garena. It includes ShopeePay, SeaBank, and other products across 7 markets. Sea Money uses AI for risk modeling and personalization, and benefits from Shopee's huge transaction data for training models.
4. GoTo Financial, Indonesia. GoTo Financial is part of GoTo Group, formed by the merger of Gojek and Tokopedia. It operates GoPay, one of Indonesia's biggest e-wallets, and GoTo raised over $5 billion before its IPO. It uses AI for fraud detection and credit models for merchant lending, backed by one of Indonesia's largest engineering teams.
Buy now, pay later and lending
7. Kredivo (FinAccel), Indonesia. Kredivo is Indonesia's leading BNPL platform, founded by FinAccel in 2016. It raised $397 million, completed a SPAC listing in 2023, and serves over 8 million users. Kredivo uses AI for instant credit underwriting, approving users in under 2 minutes by analyzing over 50 data points without traditional credit scores.
8. Akulaku, Indonesia. Akulaku started as BNPL and now runs a digital bank (Bank Neo Commerce) and lending platform. It raised over $400 million across Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Akulaku uses ML credit models to underwrite loans and AI for automated collections, processing millions of applications per month.
18. Atome, Singapore. Atome is a BNPL platform backed by Advance Intelligence Group, operating in 10 markets with over 20,000 merchant partners. It uses AI credit scoring for instant approvals and ML-powered merchant analytics to help stores understand buying patterns.
16. Funding Societies (Modalku), Singapore. Funding Societies is the region's largest SME digital lending platform, having disbursed over $4 billion in loans. It raised $294 million and operates across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its AI credit assessment models analyze bank statements and alternative data, and it has approved over 100,000 loans. We placed a data engineer at a similar P2P lender in Jakarta who built their pipeline from scratch with Airflow and Python, filled in 8 business days through our hiring process.
19. Investree, Indonesia. Investree is an Indonesian P2P lending platform connecting SMEs with lenders. It raised $97 million and uses ML for borrower profiling, analyzing financial statements and transaction histories to approve loans faster and cut default rates.
Digital banks
17. Tonik, Philippines. Tonik is the first neobank in the Philippines to receive a digital banking license. It raised $215 million and offers deposits, loans, and financial products through its app. Tonik uses AI for lending decisions and risk modeling, and is scaling fast while hiring engineers, data scientists, and product managers.
11. Aspire, Singapore. Aspire is an all-in-one business finance platform for startups and SMEs, having raised $321 million including a $100 million Series C in 2023. It uses AI for expense management and cash flow forecasting, plus ML for credit decisions on its business credit products.
Wealth management
12. StashAway, Singapore. StashAway is the region's largest digital wealth manager, with over $1.5 billion in assets. It raised $152 million and operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and MENA. Its proprietary ERAA framework uses machine learning to adjust asset allocation to economic conditions and rebalances automatically.
13. Endowus, Singapore. Endowus is a fee-only digital wealth platform, the first to invest CPF, SRS, and cash savings in Singapore. It raised $65 million and uses ML-driven fund selection, analyzing performance, fees, and risk to build low-cost diversified portfolios.
14. Syfe, Singapore. Syfe is a digital investment platform offering managed portfolios, REITs, and stock trading. It raised $79 million and operates in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. Its AI models rebalance portfolios and manage risk using billions of data points.
Open banking and AI-first platforms
15. Brankas, Philippines. Brankas is an open banking platform connecting banks, fintechs, and businesses through APIs. It raised $26 million and operates across 5 countries. Brankas uses AI for data aggregation and enrichment, categorizing and cleaning financial data from many bank sources.
20. Advance Intelligence Group, Singapore. Advance Intelligence Group is an AI-first fintech that raised $536 million at a $2 billion valuation. It operates Atome (BNPL), ADVANCE.AI (enterprise AI), and Ginee (e-commerce). It uses NLP and computer vision for KYC, running facial recognition and document verification at scale for over 1,000 enterprise clients.
Where these startups are based
- Singapore50%
- Indonesia30%
- Philippines15%
- Vietnam5%
| Country | Top Startups | Key Companies |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 9 | Grab Financial, Sea Money, Aspire, StashAway, Endowus, Syfe, Fazz, Funding Societies, Advance Intelligence, Atome |
| Indonesia | 6 | GoTo Financial, DANA, Xendit, Kredivo, Akulaku, Investree |
| Philippines | 3 | GCash, Tonik, Brankas |
| Vietnam | 1 | MoMo |
Singapore leads with 9 of the 20 companies (10 if you count Atome's Singapore base). Indonesia follows with 6, the Philippines with 3, and Vietnam with 1. But engineering teams are often spread across the region. Many Singapore-headquartered companies keep engineers in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The AI roles these startups hire
AI fintech startups need specific technical roles. Based on our experience placing talent at similar companies, here are the most common positions and their monthly salary ranges in Southeast Asia.
| Role | Monthly Salary (SEA) | Key Skills | Demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| ML Engineer | $3,000 to $6,000 | Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, MLOps | Very High |
| Data Scientist | $2,800 to $5,500 | Python, SQL, Statistics, ML | Very High |
| Data Engineer | $2,500 to $5,000 | Spark, Airflow, SQL, Python | High |
| Backend Engineer | $2,500 to $5,000 | Go, Java, Python, Microservices | High |
| Full Stack Engineer | $2,200 to $4,500 | React, Node.js, Python, AWS | High |
| DevOps / SRE | $2,500 to $5,000 | Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, CI/CD | Medium-High |
| Product Designer (AI) | $2,000 to $4,000 | Figma, User Research, AI UX | Medium |
| Growth Marketer | $1,800 to $3,500 | SEO, Paid Ads, Analytics, AI Tools | Medium |
ML engineers and data scientists are the hardest to hire because they need strong math and programming skills. Companies often struggle to fill them locally, which is where regional remote hiring helps.
At Asiatal, we see the most demand for backend and ML engineers. One Singapore client needed a Go engineer with fintech experience, and we found one in the Philippines who started in 12 days at a salary 65% lower than a Singapore hire. You can see our pricing here.
How AI is changing fintech hiring
Global fintech funding dropped in 2023, but Southeast Asia stayed strong and grew about 5% year over year in 2024. AI is the reason. Investors want AI-powered products, so companies that use AI for credit scoring, fraud detection, or automation get funded faster. That creates a talent race.
Industry research from firms like Statista and CB Insights shows AI skills moving from nice-to-have to must-have in fintech engineering job posts within just two years. The shift is massive.
- Senior ML engineer $8K to $12K/mo
- Small local talent pool
- Weeks to source locally
- Higher fixed overhead
- Same skill $3K to $5K/mo
- Wide regional talent pool
- Shortlist in 5 business days
- Around 60% lower cost
What this means for job seekers
If you are a developer in Southeast Asia, learn AI and ML. These are the highest-paid skills in fintech right now. Python is the most important language, SQL is second, and cloud skills (AWS, GCP) are third. Domain knowledge in payments, lending, or insurance makes you stand out. Engineers who know both AI and finance earn 30% to 50% more than generalists.
What this means for companies hiring
AI fintech talent is expensive in Singapore and Jakarta. Senior ML engineers in Singapore cost $8,000 to $12,000 per month, while the same skill level costs $3,000 to $5,000 in the Philippines or Vietnam. Remote hiring is the smart move. Companies save around 60% on salary, access a wider talent pool, and benefit from time zones that overlap well across the region.
Key trends in Southeast Asia AI fintech, 2024 to 2026
- AI credit scoring is replacing traditional credit checks. Over 300 million adults in Southeast Asia have no credit history. AI models use phone data, transaction patterns, and social signals to score them.
- Fraud detection is now real-time. Companies like Xendit and GoPay process millions of transactions daily, and AI catches fraud in milliseconds.
- Chatbots handle customer service. MoMo and GCash use AI chatbots for more than 70% of inquiries, cutting support costs by half.
- Embedded finance is growing. Brankas and Fazz let any app add banking features through APIs, with AI powering the risk and compliance layer.
- Regulation is catching up. Central banks in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines now have AI governance frameworks, so companies need compliance engineers who understand both AI and financial regulation.
How Asiatal connects you to AI fintech talent
We are a talent marketplace for Southeast Asia, connecting global companies with dedicated engineers, marketers, and designers from the region. Our talent is not freelancers. They are full-time, dedicated team members who join your standups, use your tools, and follow your processes.
- 1Tell us the roleShare the skills, seniority, and stack you need
- 25-stage vettingTechnical skills, English, culture fit, AI tools, and domain knowledge
- 3Get a shortlistReceive vetted candidates in 5 business days
- 4Onboard the hireYour new team member starts in weeks, not months
Here is what makes us different for fintech hiring:
- AI-ready talent. Our engineers are trained in Copilot, Cursor, ChatGPT, and other tools, producing more output with AI-augmented workflows.
- 5-stage vetting. We test technical skills, English communication, work culture fit, AI tool proficiency, and domain knowledge.
- Fast delivery. You get shortlisted candidates in 5 business days.
- Affordable pricing. A flat $499 per month talent success fee, with talent onboarded in about 4 weeks. See why teams choose Asiatal.
- Replacement guarantee. If a hire does not work out, we help you find a replacement.
We have placed engineers at fintech startups across the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. One client built an entire data science team of three engineers through us, all placed within 3 weeks. You can read more in our success stories.
The bottom line
Southeast Asia is home to more than 20 major AI fintech startups. They have raised over $10 billion combined, they are growing fast, and they are all hiring. For engineers in the region, these companies offer top salaries and exciting work. For global companies, the region offers world-class AI talent at affordable rates.
The demand for ML engineers, data scientists, and backend engineers is at an all-time high. Companies that hire remotely from Southeast Asia save around 60% while accessing the same talent pool that powers GCash, Xendit, and Grab Financial. Tell us what you need and get shortlisted candidates in 5 business days.
Frequently asked questions
Which country has the most AI fintech startups in Southeast Asia?
Singapore leads with 9 of the top 20 companies, including Grab Financial, Sea Money, StashAway, and Advance Intelligence Group. Indonesia follows with 6, such as GoTo Financial, Xendit, and Kredivo. The Philippines has 3 and Vietnam has 1. Many Singapore-based companies still run engineering teams in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
How do these fintech startups use AI?
The most common uses are credit scoring, fraud detection, and payments automation. Wallets like GCash and MoMo score unbanked users from transaction data, payment firms like Xendit route and screen transactions in real time, and wealth platforms like StashAway rebalance portfolios with machine learning. AI-first players such as Advance Intelligence Group also use NLP and computer vision for identity verification.
Where can companies hire AI fintech engineers affordably?
Regional remote hiring is the most cost-effective route. Senior ML engineers cost $8,000 to $12,000 a month in Singapore but $3,000 to $5,000 for similar skills in the Philippines or Vietnam. Asiatal connects companies with pre-vetted, dedicated engineers from Southeast Asia for a flat $499 per month talent success fee, with a shortlist in 5 business days.