Philippines-based digital bank tonik has scored $21m for its Series A round which will support its planned Q3 2020 launch.
The round was led by Sequoia India and Point72 Ventures, with contributions also coming from Insignia and Credence.
tonik was recently given a banking license from the Philippines banking regulator, making it the first digital-only neobank in Southeast Asia, it claims.
It estimated that the Philippines is a $140bn retail savings market and a $100bn unsecured lending opportunity.
Capital from the round, will be used to launch the digital bank at the start of commercial operations in Q3 2020.
The company’s founder and CEO Greg Krasnov has previously incubated four FinTech startups in Asia.
Krasnov said, “COVID-19 is causing consumers all over the globe to save more for emergencies, to care more about the safety of their money as well as about earning a fair interest rate on their deposits while having access to their funds for easy withdrawal and transfer.
“In the Philippines, where over 70% of the population remains unbanked, we are observing a rapid jump in consumer demand for digital banking and digital transfers since the start of the year.
“We are preparing to bring a highly differentiated experience to the Filipino consumer to address these needs and are honoured to be supported in this by the regulators who have encouraged innovation and welcomed technology solutions to bolster financial inclusion.”
This investment round comes hot off the heels of the bank’s $6m round which was supplied by Insignia Ventures Partners, Credence Partners and a number of angel investors.
The neobank also recently signed a deal with Daon to incorporate its onboarding and mobile biometric authentication services to infrastructure. The agreement will enable banking users of tonik to access their account through fingerprint, face and voice matching tools.
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