Prospective Philippines digital bank Uno picks Mambu
Uno, a prospective digital bank aiming to launch in the Philippines, has selected Mambu and its cloud-based banking platform.
Uno operator DigiBankAsia says it has a “close alignment” with Mambu
It’s supported by DigiBankAsia, a Singapore-based entity, which is working with regulators to obtain a licence for the digital bank.
DigiBankAsia says it wanted Mambu as a partner due to the two firms’ “close alignment”. The pair share “a focus on AI, composability, and cloud-native services”.
Uno is aiming to address the underbanked in the Philippines, where approximately 70% of the population doesn’t hold a bank account.
“There are a number of unmet needs in the Philippines that we plan to address with Uno,” says Manish Bhai, CEO and co-founder.
“The Philippines has very high mobile penetration, with 60% owning a smartphone, and 67% of the population use the internet – the market is ripe for innovation and disruption.”
Bhai says that Filipino customers are “absolutely ready” for a “full service digital bank” like Uno. He believes there is no digital bank in South East Asia offering everything customers need in one app.
The Uno CEO says his firm chose Mambu because composability and being cloud-native were top of its list of requirements.
“Our partnership with Mambu has helped us to bring UNO to life and we look forward to continued collaboration.”
Myles Bertrand, managing director for APAC at Mambu, says that Uno offers an “AI-first, fully composable, all cloud, full stack digital bank”.
Banking the unbanked
Uno isn’t the only lender hoping to provide banking services to underbanked and unbanked Filipinos.
UnionBank rolled out 11,000 new remittance counters in the country earlier this year.
Users of the counters can receive money sent via UnionBank’s app.
UnionBank has sought the help of payments gateway Dragonpay and digital wallet Coins.ph.
Related: GoBear and UnionBank launch new lending service in the Philippines
