GoTyme Bank targets to expand customer base to 5 million this year

GOTYME BANK expects its consumer base to more than double by the end of this year as it aims to launch more products and services.

GoTyme Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Commercial Officer Albert Raymund O. Tinio said on the sidelines of a central bank event on Friday that he is optimistic that the digital bank will continue to grow this year.

“Around December last year, our sister bank, Tyme, became profitable. We’re very much on track to do that. We’re bullish that we will hit five million depositors by the end of the year,” he told reporters.

GoTyme Bank hit two million customers in December 2023 or 14 months after its launch in October 2022. The lender attributed the customer growth to its “phygital” model that combines a digital system with physical banking services.

As of this month, GoTyme Bank reached 2.5 million customers, Mr. Tinio said.

The bank is planning to roll out more loan products and services for its users this year, he said.

“Our first credit product that we launched is going very well. The intent of that was to pilot and learn, and from there, we will expand,” he said.

GoTyme in November 2023 launched a loan product for micro, small, and medium enterprises in partnership with merchant payments solutions provider PayMongo Philippines, Inc.

“After we launched that credit product, we focused on launching our ATMs (automated teller machines) because it was being asked for by our users,” he said in mixed of English and Filipino.

Last week, GoTyme Bank announced that it will roll out more ATMs throughout the country this year in partnership with Euronet Technology Service, Inc.

The bank will also offer a savings interest rate of 4% per annum starting March 1.

It will also introduce a multi-currency time deposit product starting with the US dollar for a minimum investment of $1 and with an interest rate of 3% for three months and 3.5% for six months.

“We’re going to diversify these product offerings, such as the dollar time deposits,” Mr. Tinio said. “It’s good, and people are excited about that. We also started introducing practical tweaks inside the app. You can now generate your own bank certificate and bank statements inside the app.”

GoTyme Bank is a partnership between the Gokongwei group, which holds a 60% stake, and Singapore-based digital banking group Tyme, which has 40%.

It is one of the six licensed digital banks in the country, with the others being Tonik Digital Bank, Inc., Maya Bank, Overseas Filipino Bank, UNObank, and UnionDigital Bank.

The lender is the seventh bank in terms of InstaPay transactions as of January 2024. It is also the fourth bank in terms of monthly active users as of January, based on data from App Annie, a mobile data and analytics platform. — Keisha B. Ta-asan