Digital credit payment app makes transactions easy and safe anywhere, anytime while improving credit facilities and providing hassle-free shopping with 0% interest and 0% down payment.
The Philippines lags far behind its Southeast Asian (SEA) neighbors when it comes to “financial inclusion,” or that state wherein there is effective access to a wide range of useful financial products and services.
This was one of the observations posed during a media briefing held at the Estate Coffee House in Paseo Center, Makati to celebrate the anniversary of Mocasa, an innovative credit payment app that is also the only fintech company in the Philippines today that provides a zero-interest rate credit line.
The event, which was hosted by TV broadcast journalist Claire Celdran, a former news anchor of CNN Philippines and currently a producer, writer, reporter, and On-Air talent for Coin Geek, likewise provided guests with a bird’s eye view of what’s happening today in the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) industry.
Mocasa CEO Robin Wong (standing, at right), while delivering his speech during the event
According to Robin Wong, the Chief Executive Officer of Mocasa, about 78% of the country remains unbanked and underbanked while the credit card penetration rate stands at a measly 3% as of last year. Prolonging this situation is the lack of a solid cashless payment infrastructure as well as insufficient credit data.
Wong says that Mocasa has chosen the Philippines to be its first stop in launching its Pay Later Anywhere scheme to be able to bridge this gap. “We had a simple goal when we entered this market: to offer a unique app to address the cashless payment and credit opportunity issues for Filipinos who are still not well-served by traditional banks,” he said.
No more than three percent of Filipinos can get products from banks with affordable interest charges. Sometimes, even those who do have access to financial products find current tools inconvenient to use. For example, they have to top up their e-wallets first before using them, instead of just having them seamlessly linked to their bank accounts.
Host Claire Celdran (left), Mocasa CEO Robin Wong (center), and Mocasa COO Julien Chien talk about the pain points and the credit landscape in PH and how the new app can help address these needs.
During the Q&A forum that followed, the CEO of Mocasa also expressed confidence in the company’s growth prospects in the Philippines. “We support the government’s vision of a cashless society, and we know that we are not alone. We have great products to offer to the industry. We commit to providing only the best products and one way to do that is by trying to remove the difficulties in securing credit.”
Wong continued: “As we delved deeper, we learned that more Filipinos also need flexible credit payment options that would give them the chance to extend their financial capabilities. And that is exactly what we have enabled through the Mocasa app,” which he also described as the country’s first credit payment app.
Underpinning Wong’s optimism is the county’s 73% mobile internet penetration rate, and with leading GDP growth rates, among countries in Southeast Asia, of 5.6% and 7.6% in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In addition, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is also pushing to digitize 50% of the payments this year.
Leveraging on these developments, Mocasa has made a head start with its flexible credit option, offering its users an alternative payment solution that is digital, convenient, and affordable at a time when established cashless payment infrastructures remain few. Its 50-day no-interest and no-downpayment feature also makes shopping and payment hassle-free.
Another breakthrough is that Mocasa allows qualified borrowers to make credit payments at more than one million merchants both online and offline. This is made possible through its innovative partnership with Mastercard.
Available for download on Google Playstore and the Apple Store, Mocasa provides an advanced financial channel for consumers that is secured by a reliable anti-fraud solution and backed by 24/7 chat support to cater to all the issues of the customers. To ensure a quick connection to various merchants and users, it has also partnered with the Philippine government’s QRPH QR code payment network promotion.
“Mocasa’s commitment to creating an easy customer experience starts with the application. We use top-of-the-line AI technology for our KYC and for credit checks. But to ensure accuracy, we also have an in-house auditing team that does the manual check which enables us to reach the optimal approval time of three to five minutes or at most, within the same day,” explained Wong.
“As a one-stop platform for Mocasa users, our customers also receive their disbursed loans via the app, while our merchant partners can view their sales there as well,” he added.
Interested customers may apply for a Mocasa credit line by preparing three key requirements: a valid government ID, an active mobile number, and proof of income, which can be their pay slips in the last three months, bank statement of last 1 year, or social insurance records in recent 1 to 2 years.
Upon approval, the customers are eligible for two types of credit balance account: the Standard Account, which has an adjustable credit based on the customer’s financial capacity; and the Constructive Account which requires a holdout deposit in order to be used to build credit track record from scratch for those who never had a record in the central credit bureau.
With merchant payments accounting for 70% of monthly retail payments in the country, Mocasa plans to onboard 10 million more users in the next five years and acquire an additional 3 million credit accounts by 2024.