Filipino Payments Firm PayMongo Raises $31M

Online B2B payments firm PayMongo has raised $31 million in a Series B funding round led by JAM Fund, a venture capital firm led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen.

According to media reports Tuesday (Feb. 22), the company will use the funding to boost its payments infrastructure and add services that include disbursements, capital lending, subscriptions, recurring payments and buy now, pay later (BNPL).

Based in the Philippines and founded in 2019, PayMongo lets online businesses accept payment options that include credit cards, eWallets and over-the-counter transactions.

See also: Stripe Heads Up $12M Funding Round For Payments Processor Startup PayMongo

The round brings PayMongo’s funding to a little shy of $46 million, following a $12 million Series A in 2020 and a $2.7 million seed round in 2019. Other investors in the Series B included Global Founders Capital, SOMA Capital, and the founders of Qonto, Viva Wallet, Billie, Scalable as well as local investors ICCP-SBI Venture Partners and Kaya Founders.

Read more: Philippines Targets 50% Digital Payments By 2023

The funding comes at a time when the Philippines’ central bank — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) — is projecting that half of all retail payments in the country will be digital by next year.

Speaking late last year at the HSBC Digital Bankers Forum, BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said he also expects to reach the target of having 70% of the country’s adults having bank or eMoney accounts by 2023.

“We are confident of hitting the twin goals,” Diokno said. “With financial digitalization, I am confident that we will achieve the stronger post-COVID economy that we envision sooner rather than later.”

Digital payments accounted for a fifth of all financial transactions in the Philippines in 2020, compared to 14% in 2019 and 1% in 2013.

“As more Filipinos embrace the convenience of digital payments, we expect the phenomenal growth in digital financial transactions to continue in the years ahead,” said Diokno.