Philippines digital bank Tonik raises $17m

Sequoia Capital India and Insignia Venture Partners, which made contributions to a $21 million Series A last year, also participated. They were joined by Altara Ventures, Baring Vostok Private Equity, Citius, and some Filipino family offices. It brings the company's total funding since inception to $44 million since inception in 2018.

Singapore-headquartered Tonik was founded in 2018 and launched publicly in March. It secured more than PHP1 billion ($20 million) in retail deposits in less than a month, said to be a record for any new bank in the Philippines. The company plans to invest aggressively in product development over the next 12 months, especially in consumer loans and payments.

Tonik became an official Mastercard issuer last year and was integrated into Mastercard’s global payment network. Financial services, including term deposits, are positioned as accessible and flexible, with deposit interest rates of up to 6% a year.

There are also savings account options called Solo Stash and Group Stash. The latter aims to service communal aspects of the local culture by facilitating shared saving. It is modeled on “paluwagon,” a system of informal group finance in the Philippines.

“We were impressed with Tonik's launch results and ready adoption by consumers,” Soo Boon Koh, founder of iGlobe, said in a statement. “Clearly their proposition resonates well with the needs of this huge and underserved market.”

Tonik is supervised by the central bank of the Philippines, and deposits are insured by the government-run Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation. The start-up brands itself as the first digital-only bank in Southeast Asia.

Timo, a Vietnamese lender founded in 2015, claims to be its country’s first digital bank, although it is essentially a paperless interface for brick-and-mortar partner VPBank. Elsewhere in the region, Singapore’s UOB has launched a smart, mobile-only digital banking app called TMRW, initially targeting Thailand and Indonesia.

Hong Kong and Singapore both run digital bank licensing programs. In Hong Kong, eight companies have been granted licenses to date, including PE-backed local financial technology start-up WeLab. Singapore has approved four applicants so far, among them Sea, Ant Financial, and a consortium featuring ride-hailing unicorn Grab.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Early-stage
• Philippines
• Sequoia Capital
• Financial Services
• Insignia Venture Partners