SeaBank: a digital bank tops Indonesia's App Store

SeaBank is the Indonesian digital bank of Sea Group, built by acquiring Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi and renaming it Bank SeaBank Indonesia in February 2021. It offers savings and time deposits, consumer credit, transfers, QRIS payments and bill pay, and links directly to Shopee accounts.

That an app-first bank, embedded in Shopee and priced like a consumer product, can outrank e-wallets and incumbents and become Indonesia's default daily-money app.

Sea Group entered Indonesian banking in 2021 by acquiring Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi (BKE), a small licensed bank, renaming it Bank SeaBank Indonesia in February 2021 and launching it as a digital bank in July 2021. The bet was that Indonesia's underbanked mass market would bank on a phone if the product were cheap, fast and already inside the commerce they did daily on Shopee.

The bank grew through free transfers, high deposit rates, QRIS and bill payments and Shopee integration, passing 30M customers by the end of March 2026 — five years after launch — with more than 13M daily transactions and over Rp6T daily turnover that month, then reaching 35M customers and Rp7.1T daily turnover by June 2026. H1-2026 net profit reached Rp749.26B (+250% YoY), with loans up 53.1% to Rp39.81T, deposits up 47.6% to Rp41.8T (CASA at 69.6%), gross NPL at 1.65%, ROE at 23.64% and ROA at 3.9%. It opened a ninth branch in Medan in May 2026 to reach unbanked customers and was named to Forbes' World's Best Banks 2026.

Still scaling as of 2026-09-02: the app held #1 on Indonesia's overall App Store free chart, ahead of every wallet and bank app, in a market where most finance-app leaders are losing download volume. Open questions are whether chart-topping acquisition is sticky beyond Shopee-linked promotions and rate offers, and whether SeaBank's ~95% loan-to-deposit ratio and rising impairment charges stay manageable as credit competition intensifies.

The app is the growth engine: SeaBank was the only major banking app in Indonesia with rising downloads (+18.8% YoY) while the big wallets and incumbent bank apps all shrank.

Ecosystem distribution beat brand advertising: being inside Shopee checkout, QRIS and daily bill payments made the bank a habit, not a monthly-balance visit.

Consumer-product pricing — free transfers and high deposit rates — turned a commodity banking service into something users actively recruit for.

A licensed rural-bank shell let Sea launch quickly and branch-light, reaching 35M customers with nine physical branches while keeping costs low (CIR 21.1%).

A bank can grow like a consumer app: SeaBank outranked shrinking rivals by making transfers free and embedding itself in Shopee, turning a banking utility into a daily-money habit.

As of 2026-09-02 SeaBank holds #1 on Indonesia's App Store free chart and is the fastest-growing major finance app in the country, with 35M customers, Rp749.26B H1-2026 net profit, a 23.64% ROE, a ninth branch in Medan and a Forbes World's Best Banks 2026 listing. The open risks are competitive — ShopeePay, GoPay and DANA still command more download volume — and financial: with a ~95% loan-to-deposit ratio and rising impairment charges, the quality of the loan book, not the app chart, decides whether the profitable growth lasts.