A media tycoon and a digital bank

Tong Kooi Ong returns to familiar territory after letting go of his crown jewel in 2001.

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“I have long accepted the past and moved on”, wrote tycoon Tong Kooi Ong in his 2022 op-ed, ruing how Malaysia seemingly started the world’s first digital bank but squandered such an opportunity. 

The said digital bank he referred to was that of his own, PhileoAllied Bank. Tong is known today as the publisher of business weekly The Edge, but back then he was among a clutch of Chinese businessmen who rose to fame in the ‘90s growing listed holding companies through a series of acquisitions, including stockbroking firms and banks.

A forced merger after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis – the brainchild of then finance minister Daim Zainuddin – brought an end to Tong’s ownership of PhileoAllied.

When it seemed that the tycoon was done with the Malaysian banking scene, decades later he returned, this time as a minority shareholder of a digital bank.