UnionBank embraces the future of banking and is committed to be the Philippines’ leading digital bank to best serve the growing needs of Filipinos everywhere. The Bank has always been among the first to embrace technological innovations to empower its customers. With this, it has consistently been recognized as of one of Asia’s leading companies, ranking among the country’s top universal banks in terms of profitability and efficiency. For several years, the Bank was renowned “Best Digital Bank” by prestigious institutions, and also recognized in areas of transformation, people, and culture. With its drive to “Tech Up Pilipinas” and be an enabler of the Philippines’ push to be a G20 country by 2050, UnionBank stands firm in its promise to power the future of banking by co-creating innovations for its customers and for a better world!
...the goal of UnionBank is to accelerate financial inclusion and have a nation-building aspect in every project implemented
How would you describe your bank's role in SMEs business journey considering their importance in the economy?
Over the years, financial institutions merely focused on onboarding large corporations. Because of this, SMEs often feel neglected. Some of the challenges that SMEs face today are access to credit, expanding reach, and managing/enabling financial transactions. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated these challenges and many brick-and-mortar stores needed to pivot digitally. Some of these SMEs also had to permanently close due to the lockdowns. In fact, some had to downsize by closing some branches and laying off employees.
While the pandemic affected many businesses, it also unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit of people. A lot of the online stores you see today came about in the pandemic. Majority of these business owners are sole proprietors.
The direction and role of UnionBank is to TECH UP Pilipinas and support not just retail account holders but businesses as well. The Bank’s objective is to support the growth of SMEs by providing digital solutions and customer centric products.
An example would be UnionBank’s BizStarter checking account. Majority of banks these days require businesses to have at lease P50,000 to open a checking account—around $1,000 which not everyone can afford. In the Philippines around 99.58% (source: DTI statistics) of businesses are SMEs. Majority of these SMEs are microsellers.
Aside from providing digital solutions and customer centric products, the goal of UnionBank is to accelerate financial inclusion and have a nation-building aspect in every project implemented. Aside from the BizStarter checking account, UnionBank created the MSME Business Banking mobile application that consists of various features that would address the pain points of SMEs in the country.
Why do you think your bank deserves to be awarded the SME Bank of the Year?
We deserve to win SME Bank of the year because of the ff reasons:
- UnionBank is the first bank in the Philippines that launched an app just for SMEs. The app offers the widest range of digital options and functionalities in managing financial transactions. There are more fintech mobile applications than banks. Technically it is NOT A DIRECT COMPETITOR but we still consider them as an indirect competitor because we have similar features and objectives as them.
- We are able to address the challenges of SMEs
- digital onboarding
- fund transfer
- bills payment
- mobile check deposit
- loan application via app
- UPAY for MSMEs
- UnionBank GlobalLinker
- There was a tremendous growth in terms of usage, customers, and ADB versus 2021. The customer base increased by 57% while new customers onboarded tripled by the end of 2022.
Briefly describe, what are top 3 projects/achievements delivered by your bank in the last 18 months for SME customers?
- We were able to roll out various features such as loans, QRPH, and rapid merchant onboarding. In the past, the process to apply for the credit card channel in the Request Payment feature requires MSME to submit lots of requirements in the branch such as Sec Cert, articles of incorporation, credit risk rating, and etc. However this year we released the rapid merchant onboarding process that aims to onboard merchants through the app.
- Rapid merchant onboarding: In the past, the process to apply for the credit card channel in the Request Payment feature requires MSME to submit lots of requirements in the branch such as Sec Cert, articles of incorporation, credit risk rating, and etc. However this year we released the rapid merchant onboarding process that aims to onboard merchants through the app.
- UnionBank GlobalLinker: UnionBank GlobalLinker is a digital platform that allows MSMEs to create E-commerce stores for free, network with other SMEs, attend webinar/other events and more. The app has a banner that allows MSMEs to sign up for GlobalLinker for FREE. This is a feature that will help SMEs BEYOND BANKING. We wanted to ensure that our app is a one-stop hub.
- In the nation-building aspect side, we ensured that we are aligned with the government’s goal of digitizing the country.
DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) and BSPs (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) “Digital payments transformation roadmap 2020-2023” emphasized that it is important to provide a safe, efficient, and robust payment and settlement infrastructure to facilitate financial transactions of all Filipinos and the Philippine economy.
In their plans, they stated three important pillars:- Digital Payment streams
- Focus on digitalizing payment streams to catalyze broader adoption of digital payments among consumers and business. (P2G, B2G, P2B, P2P, B2B, B2P, G2G, G2B, G2P)
- Digital Finance Infrastructure
- Enhance key infrastructure that support the expansion of an inclusive, digital payments ecosystem
- Digital Governance and Standards
- Promote responsible digital innovations through a digital governance framework that covers digitization policies and standards
- Open banking and API standards
- Data governance and ethical use of data policy
- Cybersecurity and policy measures
- Promote responsible digital innovations through a digital governance framework that covers digitization policies and standards
- Digital Payment streams
The strategic outcomes are the following:
- Strengthened customer preference for digital payments
- 50% of total transaction volume is digital, 70% of Filipino adults are financially included
MSME segment’s goals are also aligned to both BSP and DTI. Since the main goal is 50% of transaction volume is digital by 2023, we made sure to get on the saddle and create a feature that would address the needs of MSMEs. In this case, it is creating a feature that would conveniently accept payments digitally and conveniently.
We partnered with ecosystems and bazaars to help TECH UP the Philippines. We generated QRPH codes to help SMEs in collecting payments from customers. This is just one of our ecosystem clients and this partnership helped increase our UPAY transaction count and payment volume.
3. We were able to increase BizStarter accounts and at the same time get quotes from our SMEs on how UnionBank has helped them
