TONIK
of science , quite a bit of trial-and-error and a lot of know-how – and none of that knowhow really exists in the Philippines ’ banking sector today . It just hasn ' t gotten there yet .”
It ’ s a frustrating situation for customers when an alternative lending platform isn ’ t available – but that ’ s where Tonik stops the very big gap in the market – and it ’ s taking full advantage of its digital identity by drawing on a huge number of talent pools .
“ In Europe , for example , we ' ve had a lot of migration of this know-how from consumer finance banks in Western Europe to Central Europe , and then from Central Europe , you know , further to Eastern Europe . Whereas in the Philippines , you just don ' t have the same kind of level of expertise migration . So , we ' ve put together a team and actually , you know , we use the skills wherever there are good skills in the world . Our data science team was built in India because you just don ' t find skilled consumer finance data science people in the Philippines today . We look for skills where we can find them .”
Building trust in a new marketplace As much of the lending in the Philippines is person-to-person rather than bank-to-person , the lack of marketplace trust in financial institutions runs high . Overcoming that challenge is an uphill task , points out Krasnov .
“ Trust is an interesting issue and there are a couple of elements to it . One is from the deposit side . When you keep your money in the cloud , people want to know that the money is safe . Thankfully , Tonik is regulated by the Central Bank in the Philippines and deposits are insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation ( PDIC ). So , that helps address a lot of the customer ' s concerns , because they know that up to roughly $ 10,000 , their deposits are insured by the government .”
The majority of Tonik ’ s depositors are not from the wealthy classes . Instead , they are middle-class people with a deposit ticket of about $ 2,000 , which guarantees they are covered by government insurance . Krasnov says trust also has to be earned from a technology point of view – especially in an age when cybercrime is rife , and hacking is an almost daily occurrence .
“ The infrastructure that we ' re running is on a completely new level of IT security to a typical bank app or traditional bank in the Philippines . We ' ve gone through some certifications , which again we ' re the first bank in the Philippines to obtain that level
192 May 2022