On Monday, PLDT’s fintech unit, Voyager Innovations, said it had received $167 million for PayMaya’s growth into financial services and digital banking.
According to PLDT, Voyager has received new funding from the IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund, part of the World Bank Group.
According to the company, current owners PLDT, KKR, and Tencent, a Chinese tech behemoth, all participated in the funding and welcomed the new investor.
PLDT informed the stock market that “Voyager is now exploiting this unique environment to grow into digital banking for the next phase of its objective to increase financial inclusion in the Philippines.”
The fintech startup has already applied to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for a digital bank license.
“Through a soon-to-be-established digital bank, Voyager will use the new capital to expand its PayMaya services and to continue allowing more unbanked and underserved individuals and MSMEs with new and inclusive products, such as credit, insurance, savings, and investments.”
On the back of PayMaya’s proven technological platforms, PLDT claimed the planned digital bank “would provide mobile-first, low-cost, round-the-clock, frictionless, branchless, omnipresent, paperless, secure, and smart neo-banking services.”
Voyager and PayMaya CEO-Founder Orlando Vea commented, “This investment supports the unique value we deliver and gives us a natural head start with the target market for the digital banking service.”
“As we did with payments and remittances, we will enable the large masses of Filipinos to leapfrog into a new stage of financial inclusion through integrated digital financial services, said Shailesh Baidwan, president of Voyager and PayMaya.
PayMaya recently expanded its government fee payment services by introducing its plug-and-play solutions to the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs, according to the company.
PayMaya has also forged partnerships with other government agencies and services, according to the fintech business.