Singapore-based payments firm Spenmo announced that it has secured a Operator of Payment System (OPS) license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). This will give Filipinos access to both bill payments and employee spend management in one platform. Aside from accessible payment solutions, Spenmo also provides unlimited physical and virtual corporate cards for its customers, offering local payments with a flat rate of PHP 5.00 per transaction. In the Philippines, Spenmo said that it has processed more than PHP 20 billion in business transactions and doubled their growth every month since entering the market. “As Spenmo starts its operations…

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) announced that it witnessed a 205 percent increase in revenue for its three digital platforms as of end March 2022 versus same period last year. With 69 percent of its user base located across all 81 provinces in the country, RCBC’s financial inclusion super app DiskarTech registered over PHP 4.18 billion in gross transaction value as of end March this year, an 862 percent increase compared to 2021 values. This was generally driven by high-volume transactions across different services offered in the app which also noted a 265 percent increase from last year. Among key…

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it has decided to pursue the pilot project of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) as part of its efforts to promote the stability of the country’s payment system. Dubbed Project CBDCPh, the pilot will test the use of CBDCs for large-value financial transactions on a 24/7 basis across a limited number of financial institutions. In contrast to general purpose or retail CBDC intended for use of the general public, a wholesale CBDC is restricted mainly to banks and other financial institutions. BSP’s Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said that a wholesale…

Tonik, a licensed digital-only bank in Philippines, has selected NetGuardians and Finastra’s AI-based, real time fraud mitigation solution. Banking software provider Finastra had partnered with Swiss fintech NetGuardians in 2019 to identify fraudulent payments in real-time, stopping them before money leaves the bank or corporate organisation. This will help improve customers’ experience by reducing false alerts of fraud, as well as giving them a high level of protection from fraudsters across all Tonik’s payment channels. This is an extension of Tonik’s partnership with Finastra as the digital bank had selected the latter’s cloud solution to power its end-to-end core banking…

State-run Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) has announced the launch of its all-in-one mobile wallet called “LANDBANKPay”. The LANDBANKPay Small Wallet account can be used to perform basic transactions, such as balance inquiry, buy reloads, bills payments to more than 800 government and private partner merchants enrolled in the LANDBANK Link.BizPortal, and cash-in via the the bank’s mobile app, its branches and agent banking partners nationwide. The bank said that the registration process for the Small Wallet requires the customer’s mobile number, full name, and birth date with a maximum balance limit of PHP 20,000. Small Wallet accountholders can…

Philippines’ Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) platform BillEase announced that it has secured a US$20 million debt facility from Lendable, an emerging market credit provider. This adds to the recent US$11 million Series B equity that it had raised from BurdaPrincipal Investments, MDI Ventures, KB Investment. Beyond its BNPL offerings, BillEase also has products such as low-cost cash loans, e-wallet top-ups to all major wallets like GCash, PayMaya, Coins.ph, GrabPay, and ShopeePay, prepaid mobile load, and gaming credits. The company said that it is growing rapidly with Q1 2022 volumes up almost 5x compared to the same period last year…

Philippines-based lender Kayamo has partnered with Netbank, a neobank that offers Banking-as-a-Service solutions, in order to enhance and automate its lending experience. Through this partnership, Netbank implemented a ‘Virtual Account’ solution to simplify Kayamo’s collection process. This allows loan repayments, via bank transfer or pawn shops, to be easy and seamless both for Kayamo and their end customers. The solution eliminates the extra step needed for manual reconciliation, thus, allowing the payment of the end customer to take effect immediately and accurately. Kayamo has also embedded Netbank’s Disburse-To-Account Service in order to disburse the loan directly to end-customers local bank…

Voyager Innovations, the company behind the Philippines digital wallet PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, has raised US$210 million in new funds, vaulting it to unicorn status with a valuation of approximately US$1.4 billion. The round was led by Voyager’s first time investor SIG Venture Capital, the Asian venture capital arm of SIG. Other new investors include Singapore-based global investor EDBI and investment holding company First Pacific Company. Also participating in the round are Voyager’s existing shareholders telecoms company PLDT, global investment firm KKR, tech company Tencent, International Finance Corporation (IFC) as well as IFC Emerging Asia Fund and IFC Financial Institutions…

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-licensed UNO Digital Bank announced that it is partnering with Mastercard to issue virtual and physical debit cards in the country. The virtual cards will make it easy for customers to transact online, and the physical card can be used at points of sale at retail outlets or any Mastercard, Maestro, or Cirrus ATMs worldwide. UNO Digital Bank’s physical Debit Mastercard will have security features that are designed to mitigate fraud. The bank added that it will make further announcements on the debit card’s attributes when it launches later this year. It is currently accepting registration for…

In 2021, the Philippines’ fintech sector gained significant traction amid rapid adoption of digital financial services. This was supported by a conducive regulatory environment and investors’ growing interest in the prospect of technology to bring the country’s large population of unbanked into the financial system. In 2021, fintech companies in the Philippines raised a total of US$356.23 million, representing a 160% year-on-year (YoY) increase, according to the Fintech in ASEAN 2021 report by UOB, PwC Singapore, and the Singapore Fintech Association. Fintech also represents the lion share of tech funding in the Philippines with a total of 297% YoY growth.…

Philippines digital wallet PayMaya has now enabled Filipinos to easily buy and earn cryptos such as Bitcoin and Ethereum from PHP 1 for an all-in-one app experience. Licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), PayMaya is both an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) and Virtual Asset Services Provider (VASP), the latter since January this year. With this new feature, customers can learn to use crypto, cash in to their wallets, buy and sell coins, and spend their crypto earnings, all in their PayMaya account. Meanwhile, upgraded PayMaya users can trade in a variety of the most popular coins directly from…

Philippines’ digital bank Tonik announced today the appointment of Manoj Varghese as its Chief People Officer to spearhead its growth and cultural integration. Manoj was formerly Google’s HR Director for Japan and Asia Pacific (JAPAC) as well as Director of User Operations at Meta, Facebook’s parent company. During his run at Google, Manoj led the set up and expansion of the tech giant’s JAPAC headquarters in Singapore primarily hiring and onboarding the regional leadership team. This enabled Google to further grow its engineering, sales, and operations teams not just in Singapore locally, but also across the Asia Pacific. Similarly, Manoj…

In the Philippines, the banking community is undergoing a major transformation to its payment infrastructure, a movement triggered by the convergence of several key drivers including changing customer behaviors, new regulations and advances in technology. During a recent webinar hosted by Finastra in partnership with Fintech News Singapore, top executives from Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank), Security Bank Corporation, Tonik Bank and Finastra, discussed the transformation of the Filipino payments ecosystem and the different drivers that contributed to this change. Ed Joson, Chief Product Officer, Tonik Bank, a digital bank in the country, said COVID-19 was undeniably a catalyst…

Esquire magazine has released its selection of the top fintech influencers in the Philippines, recognizing the men and women shaking up the industry, the investors and thought leaders directing the conversation, and the startup founders to watch for closely. This year’s list includes a handful of fintech startups founders and investors, reflective of how fast the sector has grown and matured over the past years. Out of Esquire’s inaugural Trailblazers List, we’ve curated those specializing in fintech and digital financial services, and categorized them in three main groups: the entrepreneurs behind the Philippines’ fintech success stories, the fintech investors and…

Velo Labs, a blockchain-based financial protocol enabling digital credit issuance and borderless asset transfer for businesses, and the Philippine Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX) have formed a partnership. The partnership aims to improve cross-border payments to the Philippines using blockchain technology. With an estimated US$ 34 billion in remittances arriving into the Philippines each year, Velo Labs and PDAX aim to improve on the current inefficiencies by leveraging the former’s blockchain payment infrastructure. Velo Labs and PDAX will strive to bring secure, near real-time, and low cost payments to both the Philippines cross-border market and end consumers. “Velo Labs is committed…

The Philippines’ fintech industry is blossoming on the back of surging funding activity, a conducive regulatory environment, and rapid adoption of digital financial services, a new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Foxmont Capital Partners shows. In 2021, fintech continued to take the lead in Filipino startup funding for the second consecutive year, making up 77% and 65.77% of deal value and volume, respectively, according to the Philippine Venture Capital Report 2022. A total of US$680.1 million was raised, representing a 297% increase compared to 2020 at US$171.07 million. Funding was highly concentrated on a handful of late-stage…

Philippines’ neobank Tonik marks its first year of operations in the country after securing a digital bank license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in June last year. Since its public launch, Tonik recorded PHP 1 billion (US$ 20 million) in retail deposits in just over a month of operations. Eight months later, the neobank managed to secure over PHP 5 billion (US$ 100 million) in deposits. Over the past year, Tonik has rolled out deposit, payment, and card products as well as its first cash loan product. Tonik has also raised US$131 million in a Series B equity…

Over the past year, organisations in Asia have embraced the zero trust security framework at a fast pace, recognising the need to upgrade their IT security strategy to address the ongoing digital shift, according to a new survey by Okta, a publicly traded identity and access management firm. Zero trust is a security model that requires all users to be authenticated, authorised, and continuously validated for security configuration before being granted or keeping access to applications and data. It’s a framework that’s particularly relevant today as it addresses modern challenges relating to securing remote workers, hybrid cloud environments, and emerging…

UnionDigital Bank, the digital bank entity of the Union bank of the Philippines, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with global play-to-earn guild Yield Guild Games (YGG) during its first-ever Managers’ Summit. The partnership between UnionDigital Bank and YGG will see them collaborating to make financial products and services more accessible to the play-to-earn and Web3 communities in the Philippines. UnionDigital Bank said that it aims to tech up and service the underbanked to enable Filipino communities, businesses, problem solvers, and regulators to leverage innovative financial technologies in order to achieve nationwide financial inclusion. It is an universal licensed bank…

More than three quarters (77%) of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines have been unable to secure sufficient, or any, funding on at least one or more occasion over the last five years, according to a new report from cloud banking platform Mambu. This figure is significantly higher than that for the wider Southeast Asian region (67%). The ‘Small Business, Big Growth’ report surveyed over 1,000 MSME owners globally, including Filipino MSME owners, who set up their company and applied for a business loan in the last five years. More than half (56%) of Filipino MSMEs had…