Tonik continues to reimagine banking in the Philippines with its innovative and cutting-edge digital banking products and services powered by Finastra’s Essence cloud-first core banking solution, driving significant growth in customers onboarded and consumer loan portfolio.

Introduction: Pioneering Digital Lending in Southeast Asia

Tonik Bank, the first neobank in Southeast Asia, based in the Philippines, has emerged as a regional leader in credit-driven digital banking. To provide financial support to the large underbanked population in Southeast Asia—where 70% lack formal access to banking services—Tonik set out to reshape the market by building a credit-led digital bank. The bank’s mission aligns with a pressing need in the Philippines, where 95% of individuals remain outside the formal credit system. Since its launch in 2021 with Finastra Essence as the core banking platform, Tonik has pursued aggressive growth while maintaining a deep focus on innovation and customer-centricity.

In 2024, Tonik’s partnership with Finastra had deepened through dedicated Agile Streams engagement across functional, operational, and architectural capabilities. This collaboration has enabled Tonik to deliver a modern, transparent, and seamless digital banking experience, setting new standards for financial services in the region.

The Challenge: Driving Scalable Credit Inclusion

Tonik Bank’s ambition to revolutionize the credit market of the lending market required more than just digital capability. It needed a core banking system capable of supporting high-volume lending, seamless mobile experiences, and real-time credit intelligence. The challenge lay in scaling operations to serve millions while maintaining robust service quality, reliability, and regulatory compliance.

The digital-first bank also required a dynamic lending environment that offered features such as payment holidays, early settlement options, and real-time data insights for AI-led personalization, high system reliability and rigorous operational governance were also required, necessitating a more flexible, modern core platform.

The Solution: Finastra’s Essence Core Platform

To realize its goal of becoming a dominant credit-led digital bank, Tonik required a technology foundation that could deliver rapid innovation, end-to-end automation, and secure, compliant operations at scale. The bank selected Finastra’s Essence, a cloudnative core banking platform engineered to meet the demands of modern digital-first banks. With its API-first architecture and modular flexibility, Essence empowered Tonik to redesign customer journeys, automate lending operations, and integrate advanced analytics and AI tools—while maintaining strict servicelevel and regulatory standards.

Tonik’s product strategy centred around accessible lending experiences like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), early settlement options, and dynamic payment scheduling—was enabled by Essence’s highly configurable workflows and real-time processing capabilities.

Key features of the solution included:

Cloud-Native Architecture: Supported rapid scaling of digital services while reducing infrastructure overhead, ensuring high availability and resiliency for core banking operations.
API-First Framework: Enabled seamless integration with fraud prevention, biometric verification, AI voicebots, merchant ecosystems, and SaaS tools— accelerating digital servicing and customer acquisition.
Modular Lending Suite: Delivered configurable workflows for BNPL, payment holidays, early settlements, and EIR/MIR disclosures—allowing Tonik to differentiate its loan offerings and improve credit inclusivity.
Agile Quality Assurance Framework: Supported sprint-based implementation with integrated test automation, enabling continuous validation and highquality releases across streams.
Data Governance & Compliance Controls: Ensured adherence to local and international regulatory standards by embedding audit-ready data flows and controls throughout the lending lifecycle.
Real-Time Analytics & AI Enablement: Enabled streaming of customer behaviour data into AI/ML models for real-time recommendations, fraud detection, and customer journey optimization.

Implementation Process: Phased Agile Deployment

The execution of Tonik’s launch was grounded in a structured, Agile-led deployment methodology, leveraging Finastra’s experience in global digital rollouts. The program was broken into parallel workstreams across functional, operational, and architectural domains—ensuring speed without compromising quality. A strong governance cadence was maintained across all streams, allowing Tonik and Finastra teams to work in close alignment during discovery, design, testing, and rollout.

Key phases of the implementation included:

1. Strategic Planning & Functional Scoping Tonik and Finastra jointly defined the functional blueprint and scalability targets. Key priorities included customer onboarding workflows, credit lifecycle automation, and performance SLAs for uptime and transaction speed.
2. Customization & Digital Readiness Essence was configured to support Tonik’s loan schemes, interest computation methods, and digital experiences. Open APIs were integrated with credit decisioning, fraud detection, and customer servicing systems, enabling Tonik to offer seamless in-app journeys.
3. Data Migration & Platform Transition A secure and compliant migration of core customer and lending data was conducted with near-zero downtime. Performance and integrity tests ensured successful load handling and transaction continuity post-migration.
4. Pilot Go-Live & Parallel Operations Selected modules went live in stages, beginning with lending workflows and gradually expanding to full digital banking operations. Sandbox testing and parallel runs validated performance under load.
5. Post-Go-Live Optimization & Expansion After launch, Finastra continued to provide optimization support—fine-tuning product settings, running AI model calibrations, and onboarding additional APIs for merchant integrations and personalization engines.

This phased approach ensured that Tonik maintained uninterrupted operations while rolling out advanced digital features—paving the way for scale, automation, and cost-efficiency across its lending business.

Benefits Achieved: Operational & Business Gains

Operational Efficiency

• 5x reduction in unit operational service costs.
• 30% faster loan approval process; improved re-offer acceptance by 40%.
• End-of-month statement generation times optimized for improved user experience.

Business Growth

• 7x expansion of loan portfolio (2023–2025).
• 133% YoY increase in new loan production (H1 2024).
• 94% growth in consumer loan book.
• Reached contribution margin breakeven in Q4 2024.

Technical Advancements

• AI-led chatbot handled75% of inquiries autonomously, with 90% in-app resolution rate.
• Core platform uptime ensured through SLA-led governance and cloud-native monitoring.
• API integrations enhanced fraud detection, customer onboarding, and merchant partnerships.

Revenue & Cost Impact

• Lending income rose by 78% YoY in H1 2024.
• ARR reached USD 19M in 2024.
• USD 20M in projected cost savings over 3 years from AI-led efficiency gains.

Conclusion: Building the Credit Bank of the Future

The successful deployment of the Essence platform and continuous improvements has enabled Tonik to scale with agility, meet evolving customer expectations, and deepen credit penetration in an underserved market.

In a time span of 4 years, Tonik has transitioned from a digital lender to a full-service, credit-led bank rooted in innovation, personalization, and resilience. With ongoing advancements in AI, open banking, and embedded finance, Tonik is well-positioned to lead the next wave of digital banking in Southeast Asia.

Key Facts

Supplier: Finastra
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Client: Tonik bank
Headquarters: Philippines
Solution: Finastra’s Essence Core Platform