GCash and Mayani Join Forces to Boost Financial Inclusion in Philippine Agriculture
- ByStartupStory | December 20, 2023
In a strategic move to address the challenges of rural financial inclusion in the Philippines, finance super app GCash, operated by the country’s first duocorn Mynt, has entered the agrifintech sector through a partnership with Mayani, an agri-fisheries platform connecting smallholder farmers and fishers to buyers.
According to the World Bank in 2023, nearly 60% of the nation’s poor are employed in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and aquaculture industries, making agriculture a crucial economic backbone in the Philippines. However, the credit gap for the sector, as reported by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas in 2018, exceeds 360 billion pesos ($6.3 billion), posing significant challenges to the sector’s growth.
The collaboration between GCash and Mayani aims to create the largest agri-credit movement in the Philippines, specifically targeting the rural unbanked population. The partners plan to leverage Mayani’s supply chain data to underwrite and facilitate loans for organized farmers and fisherfolks. These loans will be directed towards enhancing production by providing quality inputs from Mayani, thereby boosting yields and meeting market demand.
Tony Isidro, President and CEO of Fuse Lending, the licensed lending arm of Mynt, emphasized the transformative potential of modern technology in the financial sector. “By leveraging modern technology’s financial transformation, agriculture, which is one of the most important industries of our nation, can experience rapid growth and sustainability,” said Isidro.
The pilot phase of the project will involve borrowers from agricultural cooperatives and associations in Batangas province, a rural stronghold of Mayani. Following this, Mayani plans to integrate its proprietary tech stack with GCash to optimize lending processes and facilitate e-wallet disbursement infrastructure.
Mayani, established in 2019, boasts a grassroots network of over 144,000 organized small farmers and fisherfolks across seven regions in the Philippines. The company’s digital agri-fisheries ecosystem operates three value-creation lines: Mayani Farm Direct for market linkage, Mayani Agri-Inputs for seed, feed, and fertilizer distribution, and Mayani Fin-Assist for production financing.
JT Solis, Co-Founder and CEO of Mayani, expressed the importance of situating loan transactions within a trade and supply chain context. “By situating any loan transaction within a trade and supply chain context, I think we are able to finally crack the code towards making our farmers and fisherfolks bankable, credit-worthy, and financially empowered,” said Solis.
Mayani’s holistic approach to agri-fisheries, funded initially through grants from ADB and JICA, has garnered support from investors, with a $1.7 million seed funding round closed in the middle of last year. The round was led by agrifoodtech venture capital firm AgFunder, with participation from key backers such as Atlas Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Accelerating Asia, and Ocean Impact Organisation.
Mynt, backed by telco giant Globe, Alibaba’s Ant Group, Ayala Corporation, and global private equity funds, raised over $300 million in 2021, making it the Philippines’ first “double unicorn” valued at over $2 billion. Its e-wallet GCash has over 80 million active users in the country.
The partnership between GCash and Mayani is poised to make significant strides in fostering financial inclusion and sustainable growth in the Philippines’ agricultural sector.
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