NYSE-listed fintech firm to further expand in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — OneConnect Financial Technology Co. Ltd, a New York Stock Exchange-listed firm and an affiliate company of Ping An Group, is further expanding its presence in the Philippines

Samuel Tan, country manager for the Philippines at OneConnect, told The STAR that his company, a technology-as-a-service platform for financial institutions firm founded in 2015, currently offers four key solutions in the Philippines.

Tan said OneConnect offers digital onboarding solutions using facial recognition and biometric authentication, smart lending or end-to-end digital lending solutions, digital bank in a box, and tech solutions for mid-sized insurance companies.

Tan also said the   pandemic has accelerated the pace of adoption of digital technology in financial services at a more rapid pace with digital transactions overtaking ATM withdrawals last year.

“We take that as a positive sign that this trend is a very strong trend in the market and its adoption is going to be even more explosive as we move forward in the next couple of years,” Tan said.

OneConnect chief revenue officer Annie Ong said the Philippines is one of the countries in Southeast Asia that the fintech is focusing on after it established an office in Singapore.

“We see a lot of opportunities that we can actually work on. For example, there is a very good governance, the central bank is very supportive through its policies to help digital transformation,” Ong said.

Ong also cited the vast opportunities in the Philippines as studies showed that 65 to 70 percent of Filipinos remained unbanked or underbanked.

By establishing and further expanding its presence in the Philippines, OneConnect aims to help the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) achieve its twin goals under the Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.

Under the roadmap, the BSP has committed to convert 50 percent of total retail transactions to digital channels and increase the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70 percent by 2023.

Ong said OneConnect is looking at partnering with the largest banks and non-banks in the Philippines as part of its aggressive expansion program.

“We have other banks in the pipeline. We are still looking very much into the top 10 banks within the Philippines because I think they are the ones that have very keen interest to leverage on digital transformation benefits to better enhance their positioning within the market,” Ong said.