Changing customer expectations, the rise of big techs, and COVID-19 are accelerating banks’ digital transformation, forcing them to upgrade their infrastructure to meet the requirements of the data-intensive era, experts said. At the Huawei APAC FSI Data Storage Summit virtual event, experts from Huawei and China Construction Bank Asia discussed the need for the financial services industry to respond rapidly to the long-lasting market changes that have been brought in by COVID-19. These not only include rising demand for contactless and remote services, but also includes changing working conditions. During a panel discussion on the future of banking, Johnny Chung, general manager…

With over 2 million mobile app downloads in two months, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has pushed for digital adoption, recording more than 1.43 million new accounts onboarded digitally during the lockdown. An estimated 610,000 DiskarTech basic deposit account holders went through the three-minute electronic know-your-customer (KYC) verification from over 2 million who downloaded the mobile app. About 822,720 DiskarTech Lite restricted transactional accounts received emergency cash grants from the government’s social amelioration program. The funds are disbursed on-site through the help of RCBC-DiskarTech’s payout partners composed of rural banks, payment centers, pawnshops, and sari-sari stores (the local term for…

Igloo, Singapore-headquartered insurtech firm, announced partnerships with Union Bank of the Philippines and Indonesia’s Akulaku to offer micro-insurance policies. Akulaku is one of Indonesia’s most well-funded fintech startups who is best known for their “buy now, pay later” service. Igloo will be offering a whole suite of personal accident (PA) products on UnionBank’s API Marketplace and Akulaku’s platforms. The products were designed for the lower-income households and is said to be “easy to purchase, simple to understand, and most importantly, highly affordable with 3, 6, 9, and 12 month plans”. Igloo, a full-stack insurtech firm, employs big data, dynamic risk…

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has partnered to create DiskarTech’s NegosyanTech programme to digitalise community-based microenterprises in every barangay nationwide through partnership and ecosystem building. More than 1.3 million sari-sari stores (a Tagalog word that locals use for convenience stores) and market vendors, as well as an estimated 7 million informal and unregistered home-based microbusinesses stand to benefit from this programme. With the use of DiskarTech, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) will now be able to accept digital payments through their own unique QR codes. These digital payments will be deposited…

DiskarTech, powered by Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), has reached one million downloads just 38 days from its market launch. It was also ranked second overall amongst mobile apps in the country by Google Play Store and Apple Store and has now since moved to first place. DiskarTech said it recorded 1.3 downloads per second last week when it reached 100,000 daily downloads in late July. Its monthly active user (MAU) rate was recorded at over 70%, which is apparently higher than the industry average of 10% to 20%. MAU is among the key performance indicators that measures customers doing…

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines’ central bank, has created a committee to look at the feasibility and policy implications of issuing its own digital currency, governor Benjamin E. Diokno said on July 29. “We have to first look into the findings of the group before making any decisions,” Diokno said, quoted by the Manila Bulletin. “I expect the technical working group to submit their report next month,” he added. Although he doesn’t believe cryptocurrencies will ever replace banknotes or coins, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), on the other hand, could very well become the next form of fiat…

Huawei announced that it will be hosting its APAC Financial Industry Storage Summit 2020 on the 13th August 2020. The high-level summit is targeted at keeping the C-level from banks informed on the latest trends, developments and challenges in data storage. This is becoming increasingly crucial as the world rapidly becomes more digital, thanks largely to ubiquitous connectivity and an entire generation of people who are digital natives. There are no signs of the digital revolution slowing down as many of the markets in Asia-Pacific including Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines have all moved towards introducing regulations to facilitate the…

DiskarTech, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation’s (RCBC) virtual bank has claimed the top spot among free finance apps in Google Play for Android users in the first month since its launch. As for users of iOS devices, DiskarTech ranks second among free finance apps on the App Store, overtaking those that have been available for years in the market. “In a crowded field of e-wallets, online banking, and similar apps, Filipinos have warmly welcomed the entry of DiskarTech which stands out as the most inclusive of all. I think what makes this first Taglish inclusion super app a hit is due…

The Philippine Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), together with Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) and Philippine Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX), launches an app for the distribution of retail treasury bonds enabled by Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The app, called Bonds.PH, claims to make bond investing easy. It is blockchain-enabled with transactions recorded on a DLT-based registry in addition to the existing system. Leveraging DLT enables immutable and tamper-proof record-keeping. As such, DLT reduces manual verification and simplifies reconciliation bringing down processing time and costs. Filipinos, including the unbanked and overseas workers, can invest in retail treasury bonds by downloading…

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…