PLDT’s PayMaya targets P1-trillion transactions by 2023

MANILA, Philippines — PayMaya Philippines Inc., the financial technology arm of PLDT’s Voyager Innovations, targets to grow five times the amount of transactions it processes annually in four years’ time as the company continues to expand and upgrade its digital payment solutions.

PayMaya chief operating officer and managing director Paolo Azzola said the company is eyeing to post a yearly transaction volume of P1 trillion by 2023.

“We’re focusing really on how much volume the company drives because users are very important to us and what’s important is how much do they use our platform. So we’re looking at a number of a trillion pesos to be processed every single year by 2023. So that is something we are looking forward to,” Azzola said.

At present, PayMaya is currently processing over P200 billion worth of transactions annually, according to Voyager CEO and founder Orlando Vea.

It currently has the largest active user base in the country, Azzola said.
“What is driving the trajectory is the fact that we have a very large focus on our consumer business, of course allowing people to send money, pay bills, buy online and shop face to face also. All of that of course drives the consumer volumes, but at the same time, we’re very focused on providing enterprises with the top payment solutions in the entire country,” Azzola said.

PayMaya is the only financial technology company in the country offering integrated consumer and merchant payment solutions with the widest on-ground branch network.

Its “universal payments platform” enables the country’s top e-commerce sites, major retail and quick-service restaurants, government institutions, and MSMEs to accept multiple kinds of cashless payments.
  Azzola said PayMaya is expected to end the year with 80,000 merchant partners.

“For us, the game is really financial technology. The opportunity is there. The market is very big. When it comes to payments, we will enable consumers, we will enable merchants and we will enable government,” he said.

“The Philippines has 110 million people. It has a GDP that is approaching $300 billion and it will be, at some point in the next 10 to 15 years, one of largest GDP countries in the world. It’s growing that fast. I think we have enough in this country for us to make a payment’s ecosystem and a financial services ecosystem,” Azzola said.

PayMaya earlier said digital wallets have overtaken credit card penetration in the country and are now consumers’ preferred payment method next to cash, with more Filipinos opting to use emerging payment options for their financial transactions.  

Azzola said PayMaya would be rolling out more features and services in the coming months to further boost its efforts in making payment experience of every Filipino hassle-free and more secure.

Voyager last year raised $215 million following the entry of foreign investors namely, KKR, Tencent Holdings Inc., World Bank’s IFC and the IFC Emerging Asia Fund.

Azzola said there are still a number of strategic investors that have expressed interest in the company.

“After you raised around like what we did last year, you’re always in the eyes of funds and strategic investors too. So I keep getting calls, but I guess we’re still at a stage where we are still digesting what we have already received and successfully partnering with the shareholders that we’ve brought in last year,” he said.

“We are happy so far with how things have gone so far on the fundraising side. If we get more interest, never say never, but I think at this point, we’re happy with how things are going. Right now there’s no need for capital. Opportunistically we might do that but that will be up to whether there are the right conditions in the market also,” Azzola said.