MITI Ventures Asia (MVA) Pte. Ltd., the Singaporean operator of the yufin brand of financial services in Asia, announced it partnered with the local operator of Singapore-headquartered insurtech Gigacover Pte. Ltd. to sell insurance in the Philippines.
To note, the Insurance Commission website has no data on whether Gigacover Philippines Inc. has a license to sell in the country.
In a statement, MVA said that the partnership targets to recruit owners of Philippines-based small-scale and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the sale of family and health insurances to their respective customers.
“Many consumer goods like coffee and shampoo are sacheted to make them more accessible and affordable in markets such as the Philippines,” said MVA Head of Business Development and Partnerships Liz Servañez.
“With partnerships such as our partnership with Gigacover, much-needed financial services products, like insurance protection can also be sacheted to make them accessible and affordable for the yufin merchant network and their customers,” Servañez said.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of Southeast Asian economies and communities but many are underserved,” MVA Co-Founder Shubhrendu Khoche was quoted in the statement as saying.
According to the MVA statement, in the Philippines, over one million SMEs, including sari-sari stores, are often managed by one or two people, many are women. Less than 20 percent of them are estimated to have bank accounts while more than 80 percent have access to smartphones, the firm said.
The firm said more than 15,000 SMEs in Davao City have already signed up to yufin’s network since it was launched last May.
“Our partnership with Gigacover helps us bring insurance to last-mile merchants to give them peace of mind and to help them offer their customers much-needed access to insurance protection,” Khoche said.
The insurer, according to Gigacover Philippines Inc. head Chesca Marie Figueroa, has been focused on “giving the underserved and underbanked access to better financial health.”
“By providing these microinsurance products, we are able to help them take a step closer to building a more financially sound future by protecting their income from unprecedented events,” Figueroa said.
She said Gigacover aims to further support MVAs efforts in selling products and services to SMEs in the country.
Figueroa said the yufin app would allow SMEs to manage transactions, payments and order inventory. It has a gateway to a suite of products and services that MVA believes would help SMEs grow. The platform is supported by local field staff, the firm said. MVA Head of Merchant Acquiring Gerald Dominic Chua noted the welcome that the yufin app “has received so far from our community merchant partners.”
According to Chua, MVA would also provide credit to SME owners. He added that MVA also provides “options” to access a range of third-party products and services that they can sell to customers. Chua didn’t say whether these options are free or pay-to-use.