FlexM Wins a Major Payment License in Singapore

Norwegian entrepreneur Rune Nilsson founded fintech company FlexM in Singapore in 2015, building it from a Stored Value Facility serving underbanked customers into a full Fintech-as-a-Service platform used by more than 400 clients across Asia, Europe, and North America. In March 2025, FlexM secured a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore — making it the first Norwegian-led company to do so, and unlocking the ability to offer regulated cross-border money transfer services.

Nilsson has run the company from Singapore for a decade now, with FlexM going on to operate across Canada, the US, the Philippines, India, and Norway itself. The company has picked up recognition along the way, including two MAS awards at the Singapore Fintech Festival. The milestone was significant enough that the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Singapore featured FlexM as part of its 2025 campaign marking Norway's 120th and Singapore's 60th anniversaries.

What stands out here, more than the license itself, is the decade of groundwork behind it: Nilsson didn't arrive in Singapore chasing a license, he built the company there from its earliest, unregulated form and grew into the regulatory milestone over ten years — a genuinely different path from a founder parachuting in for a market launch, and a good example of what building abroad for the long haul actually looks like in practice.