Netbank, a fully-regulated bank offering Banking-as-a-Service solutions or BaaS, is attracting the interest of established lenders in the local landscape due to its ability to offer the service at a much lower rate than its giant competitors.
The BaaS is a menu of services made available by fintech firms like Netbank so that even non-bank institutions and their clients may enjoy the benefits of a suite of financial services on its platform just like the clients of regular banks do.
Net bank has unveiled Netbank Virtual, an openly accessible web-based platform where anyone can freely browse, test and integrate its financial products and solutions.
Legacy lenders similarly offer BaaS to clients although fintech executives claim these are at significantly higher costs than that offered by fintech competitors.
“While some larger local banks have started to offer banking services through API, none have built the technology and the business from scratch, as we have done at Netbank”, said Gus Poston, Netbank’s co-founder.
“We use the latest technology, which means we can offer services at much lower cost. Netbank Virtual will rapidly accelerate the collaboration between fintechs and banks. Netbank Virtual allows fintech to offer a much wider range of services, which will accelerate innovation and achieve the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ goals of greater financial inclusion,” he added.
Netbank previously engaged Brankas, a leading open finance technology company in Southeast Asia, as its technology provider to build and deliver the service.
“Netbank is transforming access to banking services, with a new approach that enables any business to offer fintech solutions ” said Krizelle Lazatin, Brankas Territory Manager for Philippines.
Todd Schweitzer, Brankas CEO, also added, “Together, Brankas and Netbank are helping enable the next generation of fintech businesses, expand financial inclusion, and give customers more choice and flexibility.”
Companies in the Philippines may now embed financial solutions into their products and services in a much more efficient and low cost manner than through traditional channels.
“By combining Brankas’ technical expertise with Netbank’s Banking-as-a-Service approach, we can provide automated account opening, payments, disbursements, cards and even loans via digital channels such as white labeled mobile apps and banking-as-a-service APIs”, said Dave dela Paz, Netbank’s co-founder and Head of Netbank Virtual.
