Maya Bank, the digital banking unit of the Pangilinan-led PLDT Inc., is poised to increase its market reach by offering products and services to a wider group of borrowers while carefully managing its portfolio of riskier loans.
As the bank explores new borrower segments, they also continue to expand technologies and innovate to “balance growth with risk,” according to bank officials.
“We address this (riskier loans) by continuously refining our credit models, strengthening customer education, and maintaining a disciplined portfolio management approach,” Maya said in an email to Malaya Business Insight.
For the country’s six digital banks, the challenge is looking for borrowers they could lend unsecured loans to and effectively collect payments later. Collection is a particular problem since most of these borrowers have unproven credit profiles.
Maya said they heavily rely on data such as transactional data and customer information, as well as artificial intelligence (AI), to find new borrowers and the types of loans they could give.
“We use a fully digital, data-driven approach to both loan origination and collections,” the bank said.
Maya uses AI-led credit scoring to “assess risk in real time, even for first-time or thin-file borrowers.” To make the process faster and seamless, it has automated disbursement and repayment tools.
For the payment collections, the bank’s ecosystem allows it to utilize multiple customer touchpoints from payments to deposits. This helps them monitor and manage credit behavior and also contain loan defaults.
“We combine in-app reminders, digital payment channels, and targeted engagement to encourage timely repayment,” Maya said.
As of end-March this year, Maya reported it has disbursed P28 billion in loans, three times higher compared to a year earlier.
Deposits increased to P44 billion, up 49 percent year-on-year. Its customer base as of end-March reached 6.8 million.
Based on the latest Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data, digital banks’ gross non-performing loan (NPL) ratio stood at 6.98 percent in July, higher than the industry ratio of 3.4 percent.
The July NPL ratio is lower compared to June’s double-digit 10.99 percent, which was the highest for the sector so far this year. Last year, the soured loans ratio was at 14.12 percent for digital banks.
The key risk for digital banks is their substantial exposure to unsecured consumer loans, resulting in weak asset quality.
The six digital banks’ total loan portfolio amounted to P57.79 billion during the period, up by 112 percent from P27.20 billion in the same period in 2024. The data on digital banks’ asset quality ratios only started in May 2023.
The total NPLs, which are unpaid loans for more than 30 days after the due date, reached P4.03 billion in July, up by 4.9 percent from P3.84 billion.
Past due ratio or the rate of delinquency was also high at 13.50 percent, although lower compared to 19.38 percent in June. The industry average was 4.36 percent.
Online-only banks provide a higher NPL coverage ratio of 136.44 percent compared to the industry’s loan provisioning of 95.63 percent due to its portfolio of riskier loans.
Besides Maya, the other five digital banks are Overseas Filipino Bank Inc. of Land Bank of the Philippines; Tonik Digital Bank of Tonik Financial Pte Ltd. of Singapore; UNObank Inc. of Singapore; UnionDigital Bank of Aboitiz-led Union Bank of the Philippines; and GoTyme Bank Corp. of the Gokongwei Group.
The BSP has closed the window for digital bank applications for three years but re-opened it last Jan. 1, 2025, expanding the six online-only banks to 10. The BSP is currently reviewing two digital bank license applications.
