The Philippines, an Asian country with a GDP of over $300 billion and a population of more than 100 million, is preparing to welcome its first all-digital bank, Tonik Financial, which was established in Singapore in 2018.
Tonik has acquired a banking license from the Philippines’ reserve bank. The company recently revealed that it has chosen BPC as its exclusive payment partner.
All-digital bank Tonik will be facing significant challenges. The residents of the Philippines are spread across a large territory of 7,600 separate islands, however, 70% of the nation’s population is still unbanked. Tonik aims to enable greater financial inclusion by providing services to the unbanked and underbanked residents of the country.
Tonik has received funding from Forum, a Fintech VC firm based Southeast Asia. The company says it will mainly offer retail banking products, which may include deposits and consumer loans. Tonik bank’s management notes that it could potentially be addressing a $140 billion market for retail deposits. As previously reported, Tonik may also have access to a $100 billion unsecured consumer lending opportunity in the Philippines.
Tonik’s management pointed out that neobanks can go to market a lot faster than traditional firms. The process takes only a few months, when using an agile approach, the Tonik bank team explained.
The bank confirmed it will launch its services within the next year and will be using blocks of best-of-breed solutions, in order to focus on delivering quality products and experiences to its customers.
Tonik will be using BPC’s Radar Payments software to support the payment ecosystem in the Philippines. The digital bank says it chose BPC because it can help the bank with operating more efficiently and also help it scale its operations. BPC has two decades of industry experience in handling large payments in more than 80 countries.