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Tonik Financial announced today that its subsidiary in the Philippines has received Notice of Approval for a new banking license from the Central Bank of the Philippines. The license will enable Tonik to provide a full range of retail banking services, focused primarily on retail deposits and consumer loans, through what they claim is the first digital-only branchless bank licensed platform in the Philippines, starting in 2020.

TONIK believes that Philippines banking sector is ripe for a digital disruption, and will follow the lead of other markets globally, where digital-only “neobanks” have rapidly captured millions of customers and attracted over $5B of investor funding in the last 2 years alone.

Philippines represents a $140B retail deposit market, and a $100B unsecured consumer lending opportunity. The digitally native Filipino clients, with an average age of 24, constitute the #1 market globally in terms of daily internet and social media usage. However, over 70% of the adult population remains unbanked, and market research indicates that over 50% of existing bank clients would be keen to switch their deposits to a pure-play digital contender.

Photo courtesy of Bryon Lippincott.