Neobank Tonik has now launched in the Philippines

By Leandra Monteiro

Tonik, Southeast Asia’s digital-only bank, has launched in the Philippines. The neobank brings a completely branchless way of banking on a highly secure mobile platform that sets out to fundamentally disrupt the Filipino retail banking industry. Tonik is supervised by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Tonik’s deposits are insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC). Its unique cloud-based solution is powered by global financial technology leaders Mastercard, Finastra, and Amazon Web Services. In addition, Tonik offers its customers deposit interest rates of up to 6% p.a.

The neobank’s customers can open fully functional banking account in under 5 minutes, using the Tonik App, an ID, and a selfie. Tonik account can be easily topped up in many convenient ways, including interbank, debit card, or in cash at close to 10,000 retail agents across the country. Immediately upon onboarding, the customer is issued a virtual Mastercard debit card that can be used at a variety of e-merchants. The product offer will soon be expanded to include a physical debit card or take out an digital consumer loan.

“We started Tonik because we were fed up with how traditional banks mistreat their customers. The fact that 70% of the Filipinos remain unbanked shows that the tedious onboarding process of traditional banks and their ridiculously low interest rates do nothing to satisfy the needs of the consumers. We believe that banking should be easy, fun, and – like most services these days – right there, in the palm of your hand. We are using world-class technology to dramatically cut operating costs, which allows us to offer game-changing interest rates and not to charge unfair fees to our customers,” explained Tonik Founder & CEO Greg Krasnov.

“Sadly, traditional banks have completely forgotten how to listen to their customer. So, we are on a quest to become the first bank brand in the Philippines with a sense of humor and an actual personality that consumers can relate to. Our mission is to trigger a wave of #NeoBankingRomance in the Philippines. We expect our proposition for the #NeoNormal to resonate particularly strongly with the ‘digital natives’ in the Philippines, who constitute most of the population,” said Long Pineda, President of Tonik Digital Bank, Inc, Tonik’s regulated bank subsidiary in the Philippines.

According to Tonik, it is the first bank in the Philippines certified as compliant with PCIDSS, the global gold standard in payment card security. Tonik’s systems are also certified by CISA.