Dockless bike-sharing firm oBike abruptly ceased its Singapore operations on June 25, 2018, abandoning some 14,000 bicycles and leaving about a million users fighting to recover mandatory deposits. The authorities called its conduct deeply disappointing as the company slid into liquidation.

The company blamed new licensing requirements from the Land Transport Authority, saying the regulations on fleet size and parking did not favour its business model. But users were furious about a more immediate issue: mandatory deposits of between S$19 and S$49 that many feared they would never see again. oBike's Facebook announcement was inundated with angry comments carrying the hashtag #refundmydeposit.

The Consumers Association of Singapore revealed it had received 27 complaints against oBike in the first half of 2018. Senior Minister of State for Transport Janil Puthucheary told Parliament it was the company's responsibility to present a concrete plan to refund user deposits and remove its bicycles from public spaces, warning that legal action was possible. Authorities estimated users were owed about US$4.6 million in deposits, with later reports putting the figure at S$6.3 million.

oBike then missed LTA deadlines to clear its fleet, and when threatened with fines, suggested the penalties could eat into funds meant for deposit refunds, a response the LTA slammed as deeply disappointing. The company subsequently went into liquidation. Liquidators worked with CASE on refunds, while town councils were left owed more than S$118,000 in fines for indiscriminately parked bicycles.

Founded in December 2016 and launched in January 2017, oBike had been the first major dockless operator in Singapore, expanding to 24 countries at its peak. Its collapse came amid a wider bike-sharing shakeout: GBikes and ShareBikeSG also exited around the same time under the new licensing regime, while Chinese giants ofo and Mobike later withdrew too after ofo's licence was suspended in 2019.

The oBike debacle became the defining image of the dockless bike-sharing boom and bust: a venture that scaled at breakneck speed on users' deposits, then vanished overnight, leaving the public to pick up the pieces. It prompted tougher upfront regulatory requirements for shared mobility operators in Singapore.

Founded in December 2016 and launched in January 2017, oBike had expanded to 24 countries at its peak. Weeks before the Singapore exit, it had also pulled out of Melbourne, Australia, where customers similarly complained about unrefunded deposits and a disconnected customer support line.

The new LTA licensing regime, which introduced QR-code geo-fencing requiring bikes to be parked in designated areas, proved fatal for several operators: GBikes and ShareBikeSG exited around the same time, while ofo later had its licence suspended in February 2019. Town councils were left owed more than S$118,000 in fines for indiscriminately parked oBikes.