Maya: Phl ‘nation of opportunities’
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DAILY TRIBUNE successfully hosted the 8th Asian Innovation: Digital Pathways to Upscaling MSMEs event at Dapitan Sports Complex. Keynote speakers from leading financial institutions, digital payment companies, and cooperatives, including SB Corp., Maya, and Cebu CFI Coop, provided valuable insights to help ordinary Filipinos build their businesses. Participants learned about securing loans and accessing institutional support, while also enjoying raffle prizes from sponsors and partners. The Daily Tribune’s Kim Sancha and Chingkee Mangcucang hosted the event.
DAILY TRIBUNE's Asian Innovation Forum (AIF) proved to be a success anew. The 8th edition featured resource speakers from SB Corporation, Maya, and Cebu CFI Cooperative who shared valuable new programs with residents and officials of Sampaloc, Manila.
Gabriela Baron
DAILY TRIBUNE successfully hosted the 8th Asian Innovation Forum: Digital Pathways to Upscaling MSMEs event at Dapitan Sports Complex. Keynote speakers from leading financial institutions, digital payment companies, and cooperatives, including SB Corp., Maya, and Cebu CFI Coop, provided valuable insights to help ordinary Filipinos build their businesses. Participants learned about securing loans and accessing institutional support, while also enjoying raffle prizes from sponsors and partners.
Yummie Dingding
DAILY TRIBUNE successfully hosted the 8th Asian Innovation Forum: Digital Pathways to Upscaling MSMEs event at Dapitan Sports Complex. Keynote speakers from leading financial institutions, digital payment companies, and cooperatives, including SB Corp., Maya, and Cebu CFI Coop, provided valuable insights to help ordinary Filipinos build their businesses.
Yummie Dingding
AIF participants learned about securing loans and accessing institutional support, while also enjoying raffle prizes from sponsors and partners.
Yummie Dingding
DAILY TRIBUNE's EVP Bettina Fernandez and Maya Regional Business Head for NCR Joms Ramirez II
Yummie Dingding
(L-R) AIF hosts Kim Sancha and Chingkee Mangcucang, and Dir. Alvin Kasiban
Yummie Dingding
The Philippines is a “nation of opportunities,” although Filipinos still have a long way to go when it comes to their finances.
This is what Maya Regional Business Head for NCR Joms Ramirez II stressed during DAILY TRIBUNE’s 8th Asian Innovation Forum (AIF) held in Sampaloc, Manila.
“There are so many opportunities. After the pandemic, our GDP (gross domestic product) increased by six percent. A large percentage of that was due to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs),” Ramirez said.
He attributed the high GDP growth to the country’s rising population and the increasing purchasing power of the youth.
“Our teenagers are already learning to buy on their own. So the online selling is an example,” he said.
“Fifteen to 30 years old, they contribute a lot in terms of business. They are the majority of the customers we have. In the store, they load, cash out,” he said.
Social media’s influence is also a big factor in purchasing, as well as the effect of the pandemic.
“But the financial system has a long way to go,” he noted.
Ramirez said about 52 percent of adult Filipinos with savings keep their money at home, while 61 percent borrow from family and informal lenders.
“We still have a tradition that instead of putting the money in financial institutions, we save it in the house. That’s the only problem with that, is there interest in the house? None,” he said.
“It would be better to place our savings in financial institutions like Maya,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, 90 percent of payors send cash payments in the private sector.
Merchants, he noted, are “the most underpenetrated.”
They are cash-heavy, but only four percent of total banking loans are accessed by MSMEs.
Ramirez highlighted Maya’s mission to empower MSMEs with its user-friendly platform that offers a wide range of services, from phone credits, loans, to cash transactions using QR codes.
Maya Center is the one-stop money shop for every Filipino’s day-to-day money needs.
Over 100,000 partner agents bring a friendly, convenient and least expensive way to cash in and facilitate financial transactions and payments.
It empowers micro-entrepreneurship, providing partner agents with an increased livelihood that transforms them into vital members of their community.
The event also featured representatives from SBCorp and Cebu CFI Community Cooperative.
