GOTYME Bank Corp. announced it has tapped Berlin, Germany-headquartered GmbH to scale its operations “efficiently.”
South Africa-headquartered Tyme Bank Ltd., which has tied up with Gokongwei Group to launch the said bank in the Philippines, has had a long-standing relationship with Mambu, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) banking engine provider, as they have been working together for many years in South Africa, according to a GoTyme Bank executive.
“With the knowledge gained from transitioning TymeBank in South Africa to a fully digital bank, we knew we needed GoTyme Bank to be ‘born in the cloud’ in order to have the capacity to scale efficiently, so Mambu’s SaaS cloud-native, [application programming interface]-first banking platform was the obvious choice for us,” said GoTyme Bank President and CEO Nate Clarke.
According to Clarke, they “understood what the Mambu platform was capable of and we were confident it would enable us to ‘lift and shift’ the TymeBank digital bank concept from South Africa to the Philippines, a market very similar in some ways, but very different in others, particularly in terms of the regulatory landscape.”
According to the executive, his company promises to offer “next-level” digital banking services via kiosks set up in retail outlets belonging to listed firm Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI), a business under the Gokongwei Group. Last Monday, RRHI disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange it purchased a 4.4-percent stake in the Bank of the Philippine Islands.
Clarke continued by saying they expect to have more than 500 kiosks in operation nationwide by the end of the year. He said these kiosks aim “to provide secure, convenient and high-quality financial services to the millions of Filipinos who are currently excluded from the formal banking system.”
According to Clarke, less than three percent of Filipinos today have access to affordable loan like credit card. The same estimate goes for insurance and high yield investments such as stocks.
“Every year, millions of smart, employed Filipinos fall short of their potential because they do not have access to high-quality banking products. At GoTyme Bank, we are here to unlock the financial potential of all Filipinos through next-level banking,” he said.
“Like Tyme Group, our focus with everything we do is making banking better for everyone and improving access to financial services, so this partnership is rewarding on many levels,” added William Dale, regional vice president for Asia Pacific at Mambu.
Products and services on offer to customers via GoTyme Bank at launch include a free Visa debit card for in-person and online purchases, bank transfers via the mobile app, and Go Rewards via partner Robinsons.
The increase in online transactions in the country has been driven both by the pandemic and the commitment of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to reaching 50 percent of total transactions being digital by 2023.
Clarke also promises that the 4-month-old GoTyme Bank will roll out a number of new products and services through the banking app in the coming months.