Digital banks in the Philippines built their early growth around a simple proposition: open an account quickly and earn higher savings rates than those typically offered by traditional banks.
That strategy helped attract deposits, but it has yet to produce industry-wide profitability.
As of September 2025, the sector recorded a combined net loss of ₱3.971 billion, although this narrowed from ₱5.785 billion a year earlier.
The next phase of competition is therefore likely to be less about who offers the highest savings rate and more about who becomes a customer’s primary financial institution.
For digital banks, that increasingly means capturing a customer’s salary before it is transferred, spent, borrowed against, or invested elsewhere.
From savings accounts to salary relationships
COMPOSITE IMAGE: FintechNewsPH
A savings account attracts deposits, but a payroll account creates an ongoing relationship. When salaries are credited directly into an account every pay cycle, banks gain a recurring source of deposits and more opportunities to serve customers through payments, lending, and investments.
GoTyme Bank’s shareholders acquired salary lender SAVii in 2024 , aiming to build payroll-enabled products for employers and workers. At the time, SAVii served more than 500,000 employees across 150 companies in the Philippines.
The acquisition also supported GoTyme’s expansion into salary-linked credit and earned wage access, allowing eligible employees to access part of their salary before payday.
UnionDigital Bank has likewise shifted its focus toward shorter-tenor payroll loans and higher-quality lending. Employer partnerships can also reduce customer acquisition costs because a single company can bring a large group of active users into the bank at once.
Receiving a customer’s salary, however, does not guarantee loyalty. Employees will still compare transfer fees, cash accessibility, customer support, app reliability, rewards, and how easily they can move their money elsewhere.
Payday can unlock credit and wealth products
IMAGE CREDIT: GoTyme Bank
Salary accounts give banks greater visibility into recurring cash flows. This can strengthen credit decisions for short-term loans, salary-deducted financing, earned wage access, and other products built around predictable income.
For customers, the biggest attraction is convenience. A worker facing an unexpected expense may prefer accessing credit through the same app that receives their salary rather than completing a separate loan application.
That convenience, however, can also make borrowing easier to repeat. Customers should understand whether a product is an earned wage access service, a credit line, or a traditional loan, as fees, interest rates, repayment terms, and penalties for missed payments can differ significantly.
The salary relationship can also create opportunities for wealth management. Once a platform becomes the primary destination for monthly income, it can encourage customers to automatically allocate part of each payday to savings, time deposits, mutual funds, stocks, or other investments.
Maya offers access to mutual funds and unit investment trust funds (UITFs) through Maya Funds. GoTyme has also integrated Philippine stock investing into its banking app through DragonFi.
These developments show how digital banks are evolving from places that simply hold spare cash into platforms that manage a broader share of a customer’s financial life. Salary credited into the account can flow directly into savings, loan repayments, insurance, or investments without leaving the app.
SME banking could determine profitability
IMAGE CREDIT: Freepik
Digital banks are also targeting small businesses and merchants that need accounts, payment acceptance, disbursement services, and working capital.
Maya Bank offers financial services for businesses alongside its payments and financing ecosystem. GoTyme, meanwhile, provides merchant cash advances that use transaction history, sales performance, and tenure on a partner platform to assess eligibility.
This creates an opportunity to serve both sides of the payroll relationship. A digital bank can support employers paying salaries while also serving employees who save, spend, or borrow those funds. It can then offer financing and money management products using data generated within the same ecosystem.
The model also carries risks. Payroll services demand high reliability, SME cash flows can be volatile, and rapid loan growth may increase non-performing loans. Business customers may also expect stronger service levels, security, and operational controls than a basic consumer banking app can provide.
The next digital banking winner may not be the institution offering the highest promotional savings rate. It may be the one that becomes indispensable before, during, and after payday while helping employers and merchants manage the same flow of money.
Winning deposits proved that Filipinos are willing to embrace digital banks. Winning salaries will determine whether those institutions can become the primary financial relationship customers rely on every month.
