Bringing Financial Services to the Philippines
In a case study conducted by FinTech Futures, the Philippines-based fintech company Mynt and its efforts in micro-lending were explored. Mynt is part of Globe Telecom, a top mobile phone company in the Philippines with approximately 64 million customers. The company recently launched a subsidiary called Fuse with the goal of entering the micro-lending market.
Shifting Focus to Include Micro-LendingThe financial services industry of the Philippines is relatively limited when it comes to financial services. Only a fractional percentage of the population (around 3%) have a credit card and less than 35% have bank accounts. On the other hand, 120 million sim cards are active in the country. Mynt’s venture into financial services was built on the intention of using the telecommunication customer base by offering added products such as loans, investments, insurance and savings, and using the existing telecommunications infrastructure as a platform for these services. Fuse aims to use Globe Telecom’s existing e-wallet and payment app as the default tool to make all payments. The next step is for this to evolve into a cashless ecosystem in which people would take out their mobile phones instead of their wallets to make payments. The technology driving the system is a cloud-based lending platform from Mambu, a company that also works with Amazon and is known as a disruptor in the industry.
Hitting the Ground Running
Fuse was launched by Mynt in 2016 and started with a strong focus on offering microloans to people without a credit history. With so few people in the Philippines that have credit cards or even bank accounts, a substantial part of the population would clearly fall under this category. Investments came from Ant Financial, a fintech company which is affiliated with Alibaba, and Ayala, a local conglomerate. Current goals are to achieve 20 million active users in the next three years while making sure that the user experience is positive and that the interface is good and the business model is effective.
Focused on Bridging the Credit Gap in the Philippines
Mynt intends to start offering third-party loans through the app, which has been called a ‘hyper-efficient way of delivering services.’ This will serve an area that is currently dominated by informal lenders. Going forward, the company plans to use the strong foundation of Globe Telecom and its user base to secure a space in the fintech market. From there Mynt aims to leverage a comprehensive set of financial services using technology to drive ambitious growth plans.