Philippines Grants Digital Banking License to PayMaya

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, has approved a digital banking license for the FinTech PayMaya. The company, an arm of Voyager Innovations, will set up a digital banking unit called Maya Bank, CNN Philippines reported on Monday (Sept. 20).

According to the report, this gives PayMaya more space to grow. The bank — the sixth digital lender in the country — aims to attract unbanked and underserved consumers and micro, small and medium-sized businesses. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has said it will only allow for seven digital banking licenses.

“Maya Bank will be a key vehicle in hastening digital adoption among Filipinos through inclusive financial services,” Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of PLDT, Voyager and PayMaya, said in a statement on Monday.

According to the CNN report, the digital bank will use PayMaya’s tech platforms to offer mobile-first digital banking to clients. Maya Bank will also leverage PayMaya’s Smart Padala agent network and merchant payments processing business to expand its customer base.

PayMaya told CNN that Smart Padala is present in more than 92% of the country’s municipalities and had 40 million registered users as of the end of August, due in part to the Filipino government’s COVID lockdowns forcing consumers to adopt digital payments.

Learn more: Voyager Nabs $167M, Prepares to Launch Digital Bank in Philippines

Voyager raised $167 million in new investment in June to fund the expansion of PayMaya.

“We have seen a quantum leap for digital payments adoption in the Philippines over the past year,” Orlando B. Vea, Voyager and PayMaya founder and CEO said at the time. He added that the funding “gives us a natural head start with the target market for the digital banking service.”

“As we did with payments and remittances, we will enable the large masses of Filipinos to leapfrog into a new stage of financial inclusion through integrated digital financial services,” said Shailesh Baidwan, Voyager’s president.