Singapore-based neobank Tonik Financial Pte. Ltd. has acquired $6 million in funding as it plans to officially introduce its services in the Philippines during the third quarter of this year.
Tonik has received seed funding from Fintech venture developer Forum. The digital bank has also been awarded a banking license from the financial regulatory authorities in the Philippines.
Tonik, which plans to introduce its services in the coming months with a focus on retail deposits and issuing consumer loans, noted that the Philippines has a $140 billion retail deposits market, and presents a $100 billion unsecured consumer lending opportunity.
The digital bank has worked with London-based Fintech Finastra to develop its cloud-enabled core banking solution, Fusion Essence, and it has also teamed up with NICE Actimize for the development of anti-money laundering (AML) software.
Tonik bank’s $6 million investment round was led by several prominent venture capital investors including Insignia Ventures Partners and Credence Partners. Several regional family offices and angel investors also contributed to the round.
Greg Krasnov, founder and CEO at Tonik, stated:
“Over 70% of the adult population in the Philippines remains unbanked, and market research indicates that over 50% of existing bank clients would be keen to switch their deposits to a pure-play digital contender. We look forward to working with our new investors to improve financial inclusion in the country.”
Krasnov has previously noted that digital-only banks globally have “successfully demonstrated their ability to take massive market share by launching hyper-compelling consumer propositions, while also operating at disruptively low unit costs, and thus generating outstanding returns on assets and equity.”