GCash-Mynt IPO could boost PH capital market, says solon

The scheduled initial public offering (IPO) of GCash parent Mynt Inc. could give the Philippine capital market a significant boost, Galing sa Puso (GP) Party-list Rep. Jan “JP” Padiernos

Padiernos, a member of the House committee on banks and financial intermediaries, said the IPO could bring millions of Filipinos who already use digital financial services closer to stock-market investing.

He said about 49 million Filipinos, or roughly 42% of the country’s population, now use GCash, which gives Mynt a broad consumer base as it moves toward its IPO.

He added that the scale of the GCash ecosystem takes on added significance as the Philippine economy is reportedly experiencing weaker growth momentum.

The Philippine Statistics Authority has reported that the economy grew by only 2.3% in the second quarter of 2026, while gross capital formation—a broad measure of investment activity—contracted by 9.2% during the quarter.

The figures, however, do not mean the Philippine economy is stagnant, but they underscore the importance of investment, business expansion and stronger participation in the country’s capital markets.

“Against this backdrop, Mynt’s IPO could provide a fresh avenue for both institutional and retail investors to participate in the growth of a homegrown digital-finance company,” Padiernos said.

The scheduled offering has a maximum indicative price of P10 per share, with the IPO expected to involve up to P92.3 billion worth of shares, including primary shares issued by Mynt and secondary shares being sold by an existing shareholder.

The final IPO price, however, will be determined through the book-building process and may be lowered to P8.50 or P7.50 per share.

Padiernos said, for ordinary Filipinos, the attraction of the offering is not simply the prospect of owning a stock.

He explained that the same mobile wallet app that is already being used to send money, pay bills, buy goods, receive salaries, save, borrow, and invest could also become a means to buy a share of GCash stocks.

For higher-income and experienced investors, meanwhile, the investment story goes beyond GCash’s massive user base.

Mynt has reported P79.8 billion in revenue and P17.2 billion in profit in 2025, demonstrating that the company has developed a substantial commercial ecosystem around digital financial services.

Reports have it that GCash’s business is no longer limited to electronic payments.

The ecosystem reportedly includes digital payments and money transfers, merchant transactions, lending, savings, insurance, and wealth-management products, giving Mynt several sources of revenue and multiple avenues for future expansion.

Its lending business has also reached considerable scale, with Fuse Financing reporting P362 billion in cumulative loans reportedly disbursed by 2025 and more than 10.5 million unique borrowers.

On the investment side, GCash is reportedly increasingly connecting ordinary Filipinos to the capital market itself.

Reports also have it that GStocks PH had 1.7 million users in 2025, while Mynt said its platform accounted for 53% of online retail stock-market accounts with the Philippine Stock Exchange at the time.

“This makes the Mynt IPO particularly relevant to the broader effort to deepen retail participation in the Philippine capital market,” the lawmaker said.

On GCash IPO’s impact on the country’s capital market, Padiernos said that what the 49-million figure represents is a potentially enormous pool of Filipinos who are already familiar with digital finance and therefore have a shorter distance to travel toward formal investment products.

“That potential is especially important outside Metro Manila,” he added.

Mynt has said that more than 78% of GCash users are outside Metro Manila, while a large majority come from lower-income households, underscoring the platform’s reach among Filipinos who have historically had less access to conventional financial institutions and investment channels.

For a market that needs broader participation, the GCash ecosystem could reportedly serve as an important bridge between everyday financial activity and long-term investing.

The primary portion of the offering is expected to generate approximately ₱14.95 billion in net proceeds, which Mynt plans to use for expansion of digital financial services, product development and general corporate purposes.

Padiernos also said that the scheduled IPO is also significant for the Philippine Stock Exchange because Mynt is expected to become the country’s first listed fintech company.

For the mass market, the significance of the IPO could reportedly be measured ultimately not only by the share price but by whether the offering makes stock-market participation more familiar and accessible to ordinary Filipinos.

“At a time when economic growth has slowed and investment activity has weakened, the entry of a large, profitable and widely used Filipino fintech company into the stock market could provide a timely opportunity to expand participation in equities and demonstrate the economic potential of digital finance,” Padiernos said.

The GCash IPO, therefore, is more than a large corporate transaction, the lawmaker stressed.

It could reportedly become a bridge between the 49 million Filipinos already participating in the GCash digital economy and a Philippine capital market that needs more investors, more investment and broader public participation in corporate ownership.—AOL, GMA News