Author: Fintech News Philippines

Barely three weeks after its launch, more unbanked and underserved Filipinos are now downloading the country’s first and only Taglish inclusion super mobile app, DiskarTech. Taglish refers to the Philippine language Tagalog infused with American English terms that has been widely used by Filipinos locally and abroad. New registrants to this digital savings account have already breached 100,000 users as it invites over 50 million adult Filipinos who still do not have bank account to join the formal financial system. A Taglish interface for easier understanding of processes and financial concepts by new-to-bank clients and non-requirement of opening deposit amount…

CIMB Bank Philippines is foreseeing a 500% increase in their deposit balances by end-year, following a reported 160% surge of average cash-in per customer in the second quarter of 2020. Their momentum for customer acquisition stood strong throughout April to June, with the significant increase in average deposits allowing them to surpass its 2020 deposit target. The spike coincides with the first three months of the country’s community quarantine due to the pandemic, wherein the digital bank also saw a growth in savings account openings and personal loan applications. With this upward trajectory, CIMB expects to surpass their initial target…

GrabPay announced today the introduction of instant fund transfers in the Philippines within its e-wallet. This new feature is made possible thanks InstaPay, an initiative from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to enable payment interoperability. The introduction of this feature enables its users to instantly and conveniently transfer funds from BSP-supervised banks and e-wallets to their GrabPay account, connecting more digital channels and eliminating the need to physically go to payment centers. With the rising need for cashless solutions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, GrabPay said this is part of its continued efforts to double down on providing cashless convenience…

The Philippines Social Security System (SSS) has started paying funeral benefit claims through the banks and other alternative payment channels as the pension fund shifts its transactions online. Effective 22nd June 2020, funeral benefits will no longer be released through cheques in an effort to go digital which will limit walk-in transactions for the safety of the members and SSS employees as well. All claims prior will still be paid through cheques SSS President and CEO Aurora C. Ignacio said the cash benefit will be granted to anyone who pays for the funeral expenses of a deceased member. The release…

The Department of Agriculture’s has announced the use of PayMaya, a mobile wallet under the purview of PLDT, to disburse loans for their Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs (KAYA) financing program through the “KAYA” cash card. The initiative was formally launched on 6 July 2020 by the Agriculture Secretary William Dar on behalf of the DA’s Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) and Orlando Vea, founder and CEO of PayMaya Philippines Inc. “With this digital platform, we will be able to reach out and convince more Filipino millennials to engage in agriculture, fishery and agribusiness ventures, and more importantly bankroll their…

Fresh off raising their US$ 21 Million Series A round, tonik announced today a partnership with Mastercard, which will allow its users access to Mastercard’s global network. This will enable its users to make payments anywhere with any merchants who accept Mastercard. tonik said that it is looking at launching a full range of banking services which includes — traditional savings account with a debit card, savings, and term deposit accounts with “attractive interest rates” and a range of consumer loans by Q3 2020. “We want to empower the underserved and unserved Filipinos by giving them simple, accessible, and…

Filipino fintech players can expect a boost from their regional counterparts as local trade association Fintech Alliance.ph inks a deal with the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN). The two parties yesterday agreed in a signed memorandum of understanding to promote the use of API Exchange (APIX), an online fintech marketplace and sandbox platform developed by AFIN, among other cooperation. APIX is the world’s first cross-border, open-architecture platform of its kind. It enables interactions among financial institutions and fintech firms, collaboration on experiments in isolated testing environments, and adoption of application programming interfaces (API) for quick deployment of digital solutions. Fintech…

FICO, a global analytics software firm, has released its Consumer Digital Banking Survey, which found a notable percentage of Filipinos are not taking the necessary precautions to protect their passwords and logins when banking online. The study found that only 53% are using separate passwords to access multiple accounts; 18% have between two to five passwords they reuse across accounts; and a staggering 14% use a single password across all accounts. Additionally, 15% of respondents use an encrypted password manager, which many consider best practice, while 29% adopted risky approaches to recall passwords, such as writing them down in a notebook. “As…

Robocash Group opened a US$5 million pre-IPO funding round to finance the launch of its digital bank in Philippines called Una Bank by September 2020. This move is in preparation for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) in December 2020. This move to launch a digital bank in the Philippines is despite the fact that the Philippines Securities Commission revoked Robocash’s license for operating several branches of its lending business without the requisite Certificate of Authority (CA). They admitted to doing so and claimed that they did not maliciously violate the regulations by opening up…

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has launched what they described as the country’s first all-in-one “Taglish” inclusion super app, DiskarTech. Taglish refers to the Philippine language Tagalog infused with American English terms that has been widely used by Filipinos locally and abroad. The app aims to provide sachet banking services to millions of unbanked and underserved Filipinos, especially those living in grassroots communities. “Our aim has always been to scale consumer adoption by making DiskarTech simple. It talks to every ordinary consumer using our everyday language that is easy to understand and where everyone is most comfortable with. And that…

The national government, spearheaded by the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK), announced this week the launched the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFBank) as a digital-only bank that allows clients to complete bank transactions anytime and anywhere across the globe. The newly launched bank is a fully-owned subsidiary of LandBank. In a media statement, they said that the digital bank utilises “Digital Onboarding System with Artificial Intelligence” to facilitate digital account opening via the OFBank’s mobile banking app. They said this will in turn allow overseas Filipinos to securely and conveniently submit all requirements online…

Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) announced that it has extended its free Instapay transfers or instant transfers between accounts of participating central bank-supervised banks and non-bank e-money issuers in the Philippines until the end of the year. The bank said it is leveraging its “phygital” (physical-digital) banking leadership – providing the best combination of both physical and digital channels – to achieve this goal. Since the start of the quarantine period, UnionBank boosted its mobile and web banking platforms for retail and corporate customers namely UnionBank Online and The Portal, respectively, to enable clients to safely do their banking…

UnionBank recently rolled out more cash-out options for customers via 11,000 remittance counters across the Philippines, including in rural areas where most of the unbanked and underserved population are located. Recognizing that sending funds to families and relatives living in provinces has been challenging, especially in far-flung areas where ATMs and bank branches are scarce or unavailable, UnionBank said that the best course of action to address this concern was to enable customers to send money from home via its app to remittance counters in underserved areas. The Bank leveraged existing partnerships with top Philippine fintechs such as Dragonpay and…

The Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) was recognized yesterday as the “Best Digital Bank in the Philippines” by a Hong Kong-based institutional investment magazine. This year’s edition of the Annual Alpha Southeast Asia Best FI Awards deliberated on the performance of participating banks, brokers and other financial institutions in the past year and made special note of their position “given the dramatic changes in the operating environment” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. RCBC was judged through “a fair, robust and informative methodology” with additional criteria “to tighten its eligibility,” said Alpha Southeast Asia in its announcement of winners. The Yuchengco-led…

Tonik Financial Pte Ltd (“tonik”) announced today that it closed a $21M round of Series A equity funding. The round was led by blue-chip VC investors Sequoia India and Point72 Ventures, with a significant participation from previous VC investors Insignia and Credence. tonik will use the funding to launch its digital bank in the Philippines, targeting the start of commercial operations in Q3 2020. tonik was recently granted its own bank license by the banking regulator in the Philippines. In the company’s estimates, Philippines represents a US$140 billion retail savings market, and a US$100 billion unsecured consumer lending opportunity. tonik…

Fintech Alliance.ph, a coalition of fintech and digital companies, has tagged a proposed bill in the House of Representatives to tax electronic transactions as an “abortifacient” to the digital transformation of the country. “We fully understand that taxation is the lifeblood that sustains and nourishes every government,” writes Lito Villanueva, chairman of Fintech Alliance.ph. “But we are likewise aware of its power to destroy emerging digital enterprises that are still at an embryonic stage in the Philippines.” House Bill 6765 or the Digital Economy Taxation Act of of 2020, authored by House of Representatives ways and means committee chairman Rep.…

More than 1,000-percent increase in the growth was recorded in May in transaction value coursed through Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation’s (RCBC) cardless ATM withdrawal service, as the bank sustains its exponential growth across key digital metrics at the close of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ). Daily transaction count of cardless ATM withdrawals during the ECQ period grew 906 percent from those recorded before the enforcement of the lockdown on March 16. An increase in usage rate during the succeeding days kept the momentum going for RCBC. Digital banking enrolment was up 193 percent…

Grab announced today the launch of the GrabPay Card in the Philippines, a fully digital prepaid card powered by Mastercard that extends GrabPay’s reach globally with unparalleled card security, hassle-free online payments and expanded rewards ecosystem to bring the convenience of cashless payments to more Filipinos. Regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), GrabPay is a mobile wallet that can be used to transact within and outside the Grab app safely and securely. With a 24/7 fraud detection engine, users are assured that their personal information and payment transactions remain encrypted and protected. To use the GrabPay Card, simply…

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) said that it is closer to its target of covering all provinces of the country with handheld automated teller machines (ATM) as the bank beefs up the payout partner network through its ATM Go service. The continuous expansion comes at the heels of an endorsement from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the use of this digital facility as a payout channel for the national government’s social amelioration programs. This includes another disbursement platform called DiskarTech Lite which has been approved by the BSP to help DSWD in quickly disbursing the government…

At least half of retail payment transactions will be shifted to digital in three years. This according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno in a digital forum hosted today by the Fintech Alliance.ph. Along with this commitment, Diokno also sees 70 percent of adult Filipinos having and using a transaction account by the end of his term. A three-year digital payments transformation roadmap has been drafted by the BSP in pursuit of this objective. One of the priority policy initiatives lined up is open banking. Likewise, the BSP chief encouraged the participation of fintech players which “are uniquely…