RIZAL Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) targets to provide P500-million worth of lending via its financial inclusion app DiskarTech during the first phase of its loan product rollout.
RCBC Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer Angelito M. Villanueva said in an online briefing that the financial technology (fintech) platform will introduce ten loan products in the initial phase of its loan offering next month.
“In so far as the loans disbursed, we are looking at, at least disbursing for this [first] phase, would be around half a billion pesos,” added Villanueva, who also heads the FintechAlliance.ph.
He said the DiskarTech’s loan offering targets the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), given that the products are designed to cater to their needs.
These include doctor’s loan, car loan, truck loan, motorcycle loan, public utility vehicle/taxi loan, multicab loan, tricycle loan, housing loan, overseas Filipino worker loan and seafarers’ loan.
In the first phase, RCBC is teaming up with various lending institutions to roll out the loan products. “The idea is to come up with the loans marketplace to allow Filipinos to have a wide variety of choices,” he said.
It is aiming to onboard 20 financial institutions; the platform currently has two. Villanueva said that RCBC itself will offer its own loan products during the second phase.
While Villanueva said that interest rate will vary depending on the loan type, it is seen ranging from seven to 10 percent.
The app has reached close to 4 million downloads and around 2.8 million registered users, according to RCBC. The number of basic deposit accounts enrolled in the platform is nearly 1 million.
As of end-February, deposits amounted to over P46 million, Villanueva said, noting this shows a 162-percent growth from January.
Launched in July last year, the app offers a digital savings account that has no required initial deposit nor maintaining balance. It also allows cardless automated teller machine withdrawals, deposits and cash out from partner agents, fund transfers, bill payments and quick-response code transfers, among others.
The Yuchengco-led bank saw its net income slide by 7 percent to P5.018 billion last year from P5.388 billion in 2019 as impairment losses increased by 26.1 percent to P9.33 billion.
As of end-December 2020, total assets and capitalization stood at P770.8 billion and P101.5 billion, respectively. Capital adequacy ratio and common equity tier 1 are currently at 16.1 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively.
Shares in RCBC ended flat at P17 each amid the 0.79-percent uptick for the benchmark index on Wednesday.
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