In a significant move to bolster the Philippine agricultural sector, GCash, a leading finance super app operated by the country’s first duocorn Mynt, has partnered with the agri-fisheries platform Mayani.
This collaboration aims to address the long-standing issue of rural financial exclusion, a critical concern in a country where agriculture is a major economic pillar and employs around 60% of the nation’s poor, as per the World Bank’s 2023 report.
Despite the sector’s crucial role, a substantial credit gap exists, highlighted by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas in 2018, which estimated a shortfall exceeding 360 billion pesos ($6.3 billion).
To bridge this gap, GCash and Mayani are initiating the Philippines’ most extensive agri-credit movement, focusing on banking the unbanked rural population. They plan to leverage Mayani’s supply chain data to underwrite and facilitate loans for farmers and fisherfolk, thereby providing a vital production lifeline.
The pilot program will target borrowers from agricultural cooperatives and associations in Batangas province, a stronghold for Mayani’s operations.
Mayani’s co-founder and CEO JT Solis emphasized the importance of building financial solutions on existing market structures to empower smallholder farmers and fisherfolk, making them bankable and credit-worthy.
Since its establishment in 2019, Mayani has built a significant grassroots network, covering over 144,000 organized small farmers and fisherfolks across seven regions.
The digital agri-fisheries ecosystem operated by Mayani includes market linkage, distribution of agricultural inputs, and production financing, supported by funding from various international and venture capital sources.
On the other hand, Mynt, the parent company of GCash, has seen substantial growth and investment, becoming the Philippines’ first “double unicorn” with a valuation over $2 billion.
Its e-wallet service, GCash, boasts over 80 million active users, indicating its significant impact and reach in the country.
This partnership marks a pivotal step towards integrating technology and finance to enhance the agricultural sector’s sustainability and growth in the Philippines, offering a new horizon of opportunities for rural financial inclusion.
BusinessTimes Philippines