GoTyme to roll out investments, additional credit services by Q4

Gokongwei-backed digital lender GoTyme Bank Corp. is set to expand its product offerings to include more credit and investment services by the end of the year, during which it also seeks to capture the Vietnamese market.

According to GoTyme president and chief executive officer Nathaniel Clarke, the bank is looking to offer investment products such as cryptocurrency trading upon approval of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

“We’re just waiting regulatory approval for that. We’re actually gonna start with crypto trading, so that will be the first investment product,” he told GMA News Online in an interview in Quezon City.

“We’re also looking at local equities as well as foreign equities and bonds, so we actually want to provide all asset classes in the GoTyme app,” he added.

Clarke said the cryptocurrency trading is expected to be made available by the third quarter of the year once it secures the go-ahead from the Central Bank. It will initially cover the major tokens, which will then be increased over time.

For equities, the bank is in talks to partner with a local brokerage firm to offer Philippine equities with a target to also roll out foreign equities moving forward.

Also among the first set of services set to be rolled out would be a foreign exchange product, which will allow users to invest in US dollars on three- and six-month terms with the bank looking at a minimum investment of as low as $10 and an interest rate of up to 3.5%.

“The primary segment that we’re targeting is more the emerging affluent, like a young millennial, Gen Z, ‘Zillennials’ as our marketing team calls them,” he said, adding that current products hold back potential investors from entering the market due to a high minimum.

In terms of credit services, Clarke said the bank is looking to launch an “open market consumer product” which will serve as a “buy now, pay later” QR-based consumer credit card.

GoTyme currently offers two credit services — a small business lending service in partnership with Paymongo, and a salary lending product that allows employees to access their wages and salary already earned at an earlier date.

“Those are the two that are in place now. By the second half of the year, towards by the fourth quarter, we’ll be launching our first… We call it a more open market consumer product,” Clarke said.

In terms of its expansion to Vietnam, Clarke said this would come by the fourth quarter, but this would initially include only one product. Announcements for the overseas expansion are set to be made in the third quarter.

The bank said it is optimistic to reach 5 million users by the end of 2024, and on track to hit 10 million users a year before its initial target of five years after it started operations.

GoTyme is one of the six banks approved by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to operate as digital banks in the country, along with Maya Bank Inc., the Overseas Filipino Bank Inc., Tonik Digital Bank Inc., UnionDigital Bank Inc., and UNObank Inc.—RF, GMA Integrated News