DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: PHILIPPINES Winning hearts and minds: Tonik’s quirkiness, as much as its interest rates, appeals to Filipinos
In a market where there’s all to play for, the first digital-only bank has smashed its deposit targets as it takes financial services mainstream. Founder Greg Krasnov tells us why Tonik is proving just that for the Philippines It might cheekily call customers ‘luv’ and invite new ones for a ‘quickie’, but Tonik Bank has no intention of being a one-night stand. Quite the contrary: eight months into its launch in a country where the average age is 24 and 70 per cent of the population remains unbanked, the ‘naughty’ neobank is already playing a key role in helping more Filipinos build long and lasting financial relationships. Pitched at one of the youngest, digitally-native economies in the world, Tonik’s fun façade masks a deadly serious intent: to gain substantial market share and have influence way beyond the famous palm-fringed shores. As the first privately owned neobank to be granted a digital banking licence by the Philippines central bank Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Tonik template – and the country’s regulatory approach – could pave the way for future digital banking developments in areas of the world that suffer similarly low financial engagement. Tonik and five others that have since been granted the much-coveted licences, are being regulated by BSP’s IT department, which has been given a mandate to experiment in finding new ways to improve financial inclusion and grow the consumer economy. As part of that process, Tonik is also deeply involved in a pilot study to create an open banking ecosystem. Driving all of that is BSP’s mission to boost the banked population
Naughty not-so-n iche! 54
TheFintechMagazine | Issue 22
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