Singapore-headquartered DigibankASIA set to operate digital bank in Philippines

SINGAPORE-HEADQUARTERED fintech company DigibankASIA is slated to operate a digital bank in the Philippines after receiving approval from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

DigibankASIA is the first fintech company approved under BSP's Digital Banking License framework. Previously, the bank had only converted pre-existing banking licences to digital banking permits.

The digital bank will operated as UNObank, and aims to address financial inclusion in the Philippines through its robust technology stack providing products and services from other industry leaders like Mambu, Backbase and AWS.

The Philippines has among the lowest banking penetration rates in South-east Asia, with an estimated 71 per cent of unbanked Filipino adults in 2019, according to BSP's 2020 Financial Inclusion Survey. Digital banks like UNObank can help improve this by making such financial services and products more accessible and convenient.

DigibankASIA co-founder and chief executive officer of UNObank Manish Bhai said: "The BSP's vision and foresight to digitalise the local banking industry is future-forwards and apt because ultimately it will help align the Philippines as a modern banking centre for the region."

This comes as the Philippines' central bank approved yet another digital bank licence on Monday.

The other co-founders of DigibankASIA are fintech influencer Kalidas Ghose, who led efforts to build consumer finance company FE Credit in Vietnam, and Puneet Gupta, who is the chief technology officer for UNObank.